Here are 11 things that are technically banned by the Bible. (All quotes are translations from the New American Standard Bible, but, because I’m actually trying to maintain serious journalistic integrity here, I cross-referenced several other translations to make sure I wasn’t missing the point.)

Football. At least, the pure version of football, where you play with a pigskin. The modern synthetic footballs are ugly and slippery anyways. Leviticus 11:8, which is discussing pigs, reads “You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.”
And you’re doubly breaking that if you wake up, eat some sausage then go throw around the football. Or go to the county fair and enter a greased pig catching contest.

Fortune telling. Before you call a 900 number (do people still call 900 numbers, by the way?), read your horoscope or crack open a fortune cookie, realize you’re in huge trouble if you do. Leviticus 19:31 reads “Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” The penalty for that? Check Leviticus 20:6: “As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.”
Seems like a lifetime of exile is a pretty harsh penalty for talking to Zoltar.

Pulling out. The Bible doesn’t get too much into birth control… it’s clearly pro-populating but, back when it was written, no one really anticipated the condom or the sponge, so those don’t get specific bans.
But… pulling out does. One of the most famous sexual-oriented Bible verses… the one that’s used as anti-masturbation rhetoric… is actually anti-pulling out.
It’s Genesis 38:9-10: “Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother. But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; so He took his life also.”
Yep — pull out and get smote. That’s harsh.

Tattoos. No tattoos. Leviticus 19:28 reads, “You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.”
Not even a little butterfly on your ankle. Or Thug Life across your abdomen. Or even, fittingly enough, a cross.

Polyester, or any other fabric blends. The Bible doesn’t want you to wear polyester. Not just because it looks cheap. It’s sinfully unnatural. Leviticus 19:19 reads, “You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.”
Check the tag on your shirt right now. Didn’t realize you were mid-sin at this exact second, did you? (Unless you checked the tag by rolling off your neighbor’s wife while you two were having anal sex in the middle of robbing a blind guy. Then your Lycra-spandex blend is really the least of your problems.)

Divorce. The Bible is very clear on this one: No divorcing. You can’t do it. Because when you marry someone, according to Mark 10:8, you “are no longer two, but one flesh.” And, Mark 10:9 reads, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
Mark gets even more hardcore about it a few verses later, in Mark 10:11-12, “And He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.’”

Letting people without testicles into church. Whether you’ve been castrated or lost one or two balls to cancer isn’t important. The Bible doesn’t get that specific. It just says you can’t pray. Deuteronomy 23:1 reads (this is the God’s Word translation, which spells it out better), “A man whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off may never join the assembly of the Lord.”
Oh, and the next verse says that if you’re a bastard, the child of a bastard… or even have a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild of a bastard, you can’t come to church or synagogue either. Deuteronomy 23:2 reads, “No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the Lord.”

Wearing gold.1 Timothy 2:9 doesn’t like your gold necklace at all. Or your pearl necklace. Or any clothes you’re wearing that you didn’t get from Forever 21, Old Navy or H&M.
“Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments.”

Shellfish.Leviticus 11:10 reads, “But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that does not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you.” And shellfish is right in that wheelhouse. Leviticus 11 bans a TON of animals from being eaten (it’s THE basis for Kosher law); beyond shellfish and pig, it also says you can’t eat camel, rock badger, rabbit, eagle, vulture, buzzard, falcon, raven, crow, ostrich, owl, seagull, hawk, pelican, stork, heron, bat, winged insects that walk on four legs unless they have joints to jump with like grasshoppers (?), bear, mole, mouse, lizard, gecko, crocodile, chameleon and snail.
Sorry if that totally ruins your plans to go to a rock badger eat-off this weekend.

Your wife defending your life in a fight by grabbing your attacker’s genitals. No joke. Deuteronomy actually devotes two verses to this exact scenario: Deuteronomy 25:11-12.
“If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.”
That’s impossible to misinterpret. Ladies, if your husband is getting mugged, make sure to kick the mugger in the pills. Do not do the grip and squeeze (no matter what “Miss Congeniality” might advise). Or your hand needs to be cut off.

As a final note, I know that nine of these 11 cite the Old Testament, which Christianity doesn’t necessarily adhere to as law.

To which I say: If you’re going to ignore the section of Leviticus that bans about tattoos, pork, shellfish, round haircuts, polyester and football, how can you possibly turn around and quote Leviticus 18:22 (“You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”) as irrefutable law?

But that’s me trying to introduce logic to religious fanaticism (or, at least, trying to counter some mix of ignorance, bigotry and narcissism with logic). And I should probably know better.

I love it when people wear those gold crosses. Hypocrisy! At least the Mormons kind-of had the right idea. They don’t wear or display the cross because, as they say, it’s the “death weapon” of Christ. Still, they make, sell and frequently wear those “CTR” rings, which stands for “Choose the Right.” In recent years they’ve become quite fancy and very expensive in some cases. Yet the Bible says not to adorn yourself.

And then the one about divorce? HA! Just about all of those Bible-thumping, Christ-loving, God-fearing politicians who want to bring America back to it’s “Christian roots” have broken at least one of these Bible bans. Pick and choose!

With respect, I think your caricature of Christian theology is something short of intellectually honest. Obviously Christians still accept the entire old Testament, and thus Christians look to it for sound theology in all these instances. This theology, however, is informed by a fundamental commitment to understanding the entire Torah as setting theological trajectories aiming towards the fullness of that revelation in the Gospel. That means that all of those passages are accepted in such a way that their “proper” (at least according to classical Christian exegesis) interpretation is informed by Christ and thus that reality towards which the law was pointing is itself retained as ultimately true. Technically speaking, Christians are not even bound to the ten commandments (as such), but are bound to the righteousness behind them, such that what each of the commandments is ultimately aimed towards remains a final cause of all Christian spirituality and religious engagement.

If this seems obscure, perhaps a simple example will help. Take the example of divorce. Notice that none of the passages forbidding it come from the Old Testament. Rather, the Old Testament allows for divorce, where the new doesn’t. Why is this? Precisely because the ‘ideal’ towards which the laws surrounding marriage in the Torah are oriented is monogamous and indissoluble marriage. Of the list you present, I would say that this is the only example Christians must take seriously, and this has remained the position of the Catholic Church. Similarly exegetes argue that passages such as those on homosexuality (which exist also in the New Testament) are oriented to direct people towards the ideal of indissoluble monogamous marriage previewed in the Eden account. Other features, such as not being able to have certain hair cuts, or wear clothing according to some customary styles, or have bodily markings, etc, are aimed to separate and visibly distinguish the People of God from their surrounding cultures, something which itself is intended to direct Christians to the reality that God calls his people ‘out’ from among the nations, to be notably different. In the Gospel, this takes the form of not dressing one’s tongue with slander, and not engaging in the immoral activities in the surrounding culture. Whether one agrees with this logic or not, it is hardly given a proper treatment in this post, don’t you think?

Perhaps you could attack this exegesis as ad hoc or inappropriate, but it seems difficult to take your points seriously as they now stand, since they seem to ignore any sophisticated theological account of exegesis.

I also cannot help but comment on the fact that you use the terms or ideas of ‘Church’ ‘Temple/Tabernacle’ and ‘synagogue’ as essentially synonymous. Again, if you want clean up your argument and make it more persuasive it might be worth your time to pay more careful attention to those distinctions or else argue that equivocation is justified.

These comments are intended to be constructive criticism more than anything else. My hope is (though perhaps naive) that in future the argument(s) you present may be more worthy of a thoughtful and reflective response. Good luck. 😛

I guess I won’t be buried in “our” Jewish cemetary…Not only do I wear polyester (and I’m wearing a polyester/cotton T-shirt at the very moment), but I’ve “sinned gravely” by having a lovely tattoo with the quote from “Twin Peaks” lol.

first off; where in the new testament does christ or any of his discipals say anything about homosexuality? you chide the author of this post for illogical or unfair treatment but you say the new testament speaks on homosexuality and give us no example. because one does not exist.

second; christ was a jew. christ was happy being a jew; he wanted to be their king. the last supper wasn’t just a get together; it was passover seder. the old testament was written by and for the jews; so, any mixing of terms church, tabernacle ect is silly. as far as either the old or new testaments reference to the place of worship…. they meant temple/synagogue.

lastly; your long winded rebuttal skirts and largely ignors that these crazy rules and laws ARE some of the basic tenets of your faith and exegesis is not really needed since they are quite clear and specific and for the most part ignored while items clearly on those same crazy lists are picked out and chosen as reasons for bigotry, division and spite.

A long time ago I thought I coined the term “fundamentalist atheist” (or I thought I did, it turned out that someone had beaten me to it), for atheists who handle the word of God the way fundamentalist Christians do – with ignorance and arrogance.

Posting rants such as this as red meat for the Christian haters is neither logic nor reason, it is “ignorance, bigotry and narcissism” AND projection.

In the first place, the NT DOES speak about homosexuality, Jesus speaks about it indirectly when he talks about what marriage is in Matthew 10:7-8 where he says: “‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife” which puts to the lie the notion of “gay marriage” in the church. Jesus is, of course, reiterating a theme from Genesis 2:24, which Paul (a disciple!) picks up again in Ephesians 5:31.

Furthermore, Paul speaks most vehemently against homosexuality in Romans 1:26:

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Second, Jesus was a Jew but did not come to be King, he says himself that he came to be a servant in Mark 10:45:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The Eucharist, of course, is the fulfillment of the passover, with Christ’s blood taking the place of the Passover lamb’s blood. That was the significance of the whole Lord’s Supper.

Mixing the terms “synagogue” and “temple” are significant because using “synagogue” in this context is an anachronism – it didn’t exist at that time.

These “crazy rules” are NOT the tenets of the Christian faith, they are excerpts from the historical background of Judaism/Christianity, and are often used by atheists and other non-believers as reasons for bigotry, division and spite.

tylerjourneaux is quite correct in pointing out that many of the rules that non-believers judge from their 21st century high horses were practical in nature.

He is merely taking the original author to task for his poor scholarship.

This article proves that you really need to read the Bible, yes, all of it and let
yourself understand what its all about. We are no longer under the law, thank
goodness God sent his one and only son to redeem us and he was the only
one who kept the law, so we can live under Grace. Remember what he said
as he hung on the cross “It is Finished” and so, yes, you are forgiven!!!

Leviticus 19:27 reads “You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.” It has been brought to my attention that: The side growth of your heads in the Orthodox Jewish community is called payot(google it). I don’t think it has anything to do with the infamous Beatles “bowl cut” hairstyle.

You left out the charging and accepting of Interest. According to Ezekiel, it’s a capital offense!
[Ezek 18:15] who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, [Ezek 18:16] does not wrong anyone, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, [Ezek 18:17] withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no advance or accrued interest, observes my ordinances, and follows my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. (NRSV).
There are at least a dozen other references to Interest in the Bible.

What you are reffering to is Dispensationalism, something many xtians feel compelled to do when these so called laws do no prescribe to their daily lives in a modern sense. And since when do atheists or anyone else need to read the bible entirely to ‘understand’ it? I would say they no more have a need to do that than xtians have a need to read the entire Q’uran to understand Allah and his only prophet Mohammed…

And let’s not forget the New Testament injunctions against women speaking in church: 1 Cor 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:11. If my esteemed fundamentalist brothers and sisters are going to use Paul’s words to condemn gay people, they better use Paul’s words equally to silence women from speaking. If not, that’s proof that they pick and choose what they want to believe, only observing things that support their preexisting political agenda.

I’ve always been astounded by people saying that the Onan verse has anything to do with anything (masturbation, pulling out) because technically he was directly commanded by God to give children to that women and he decided not to. Have you been told by God to give children lately? I don’t think so.

Actually a lot of these are contextually invalid in one way or another, but so are most of the arbitrary rules chosen by fundamentalists, of course :). (yes, this includes homosexuality bans, in my opinion)

tylerjourneaux, you are a typical religious moron. Nice try at wiggling out of the idiocy that is the Bible. You believe what you want to believe and come up with half-wit explanations about why you shouldn’t be held to all the other bullshit sayings in the Bible that you don’t want to follow. Grow the fuck up.

I think it great that you read the bible although you have gotten all the facts right you faild to mention that since crist had died on the cross that the old teseament is prety much void . since he died for our sins we nolonger have to sacrifice animals and things like that

Just goes to show you how the Bible is interpreted differently by everyone. But it doesn’t matter—people will continue to keep doing what they are doing and being guided by what/Whom they believe is their higher power. In the meantime, people can preach and scream out biblical verses all they want but the fact is that the gays aren’t going anywhere and people need to just get over it. Bigotry cloaked in a biblical verse is still plain old bigotry.

In response to your reply, I would like to say that you’ve rather missed the point of my comments. However, if you require it of me, I will provide some passages on Homosexuality in the New Testament: Romans 1:24-27; 1 Timothy 1:10; Jude 7.

Secondly: the word ‘Church’ is a Jewish word (Kahal) and it means precisely a called out community. Jesus, when he said he was starting the new ‘Church’ was understood by all to be starting a new Israel (which is why he took 12 apostles, to represent the twelve tribes, etc). Christianity, just as Christ, is thoroughly Jewish. Moreover, the New Testament was written by Jews as well (with the exception of Luke).

Finally, your last point seems to come not from a serious intellectual treatment, but from a prejudice possibly stemming from an area of hurt. I will decline from making any assumptions about you, but it seems to me that with such a point it is hard to know what to say other than what I have already said.

Timothy 3:16 reads that “all Scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” The original followers of Yahweh were the Jews, and I assure you that they were fundamentalists. There were no “liberal” or “moderate” adherents, and everything I’ve read that God asked of them was done precisely as it was said or written. No Israelite would have had the audacity to say, “I think that what God *really* meant was _______.”

What you seem to be failing to take into account is that the god of the Old Testament and the god of the New Testament are the SAME god, and Jesus’ purpose was to fulfill the will of the Father (that same god). Therefore, Jesus was allegedly seated at the right hand of the Father, and looked onward as He endorsed genocide, slavery, and all of the other atrocities written of in the Old Testament. I realize that Christians would *love* to be able to repudiate the Old Testament because it damages their credulity, but an omniscient god said to be the same “yesterday, today, and forever” should be held accountable for their track record – *all* of it. Thankfully, there is little evidence of veracity of the Bible on the whole, let alone the morality of its teachings.

I don’t think one needs to read or study Christian theology in order to have a superficial understanding of it, but criticisms of it which fail to comprehend it in its most sophisticated forms are going to be hard to take seriously. As an analogy, imagine if a fundamentalist were to object to evolution by saying that we’ve never observed evolution empirically, or else if they said something as fantastically foolish as “why don’t monkeys give birth to humans today”. Anyone with a working understanding of evolutionary theory would hardly be able to take the objection seriously. So it is with theologians who hear such petty and superficial criticisms which fail to understand ‘how’ Christians understand the Bible.

By the way, I was not talking about dispensationalism. I myself am a Catholic. Everything I said is, to my mind, a fair reflection of the Catholic take on the Old Testament, and specifically the Christian approach to the Torah.

“first off; where in the new testament does christ or any of his discipals say anything about homosexuality?” – beelzebubjones

With all due respect:

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another…Although THEY KNOW GOD’S RIGHTEOUS DECREE THAT THOSE WHO DO SUCH THINGS DESERVE DEATH, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” – Romans 1:26-32, excerpted

Honestly, this doesn’t help the Christian’s collective case, because this reference means that Christians cannot retreat behind the flimsy wall that is the “but that was OLD Testament” excuse in order to abdicate the Bible’s bigotry. The New Testament also contains the following gem, and so the credibility of its stance on homosexuals is dubious, at best.

“…the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” – Matthew 27:52-53

I have problems with the Onan conclusion too. Onan’s crime was one of greed (he sought to keep his brother’s inheiritance fpr himself instead of fathering his brother’s heir), lying (he promised to father a child, when he had no intention of doing so), rape by deceit (she had sex with Onan only to begat a child-he lied to her to get sex).

Onan’s crimes are many, simply ‘pulling out’ isn’t one of them. The *reason* for his pulling out is his crime and sin.

As someone who has respect for the Constitution and democracy, I feel our state cannot pass laws solely based on my beliefs or other religious beliefs. That is not a democracy, it’s a theocracy. Laws against homosexuals are equivelant to Shariah Law.

Saturday is the 7th day, technically speaking according to history. Although your point can still apply (as many worship on Sunday), it does go a ways toward exposing the ignorance of many people when it comes to discussing these issues.

The Bible is so old school.. The world has changed since those times, and we have changed with it. No matter what any Christianity-obsessed individual says or does, we have ALL “sinned” when it comes to what the Bible tells us. Even so, you can “sin” to the extreme your entire life, and still repent on your deathbed. And as long as you are genuinely sincere, you will be accepted into heaven. That’s just how Christianity works. There are so many traditions and “sins” within the Bible that it absolutely cannot be applied to the world as it is today. Jesus freaks, accept it. I mean, were you really just outside smearing lamb’s blood on your doors and windows before you came in and read this? I don’t think so.

I think the original poster, which incorrectly stated that homosexuality was not discussed in the New Testament, meant to say that no where in the New Testament does Jesus Christ mention, discuss or condemn homosexuality. Paul talks about it quite often, well, because he was crazy, among other things.

This is the only post from here that I’ve read, having come to it from a Fb share, but I took the whole thing to be a tongue-in-cheek article. As such, thanks for making me laugh! (And, yes, I’m a person of faith. Some of us have a sense of humour you know.)

Because many commentators read the Bible out of its historical context, and also because of errors in translation (or exact meaning), there have been much ados about nothing, regarding transgressions of law. One prime example is the interpretation of “The Sin of Onan”, as being one of either prophylaxis, or masturbation. Neither is correct. Within the context of the Levirate Marriage, the real transgression of Onan was that of pure greed. If his brother’s widow had no one to inherit the estate, then Onan’s children would. A case of greedy seed spilling. Not a nice thing to do.

You have a right to believe what you want, the Bible is the most both scrutinized and sold book in the world…. Think about that a minute…. I’m honestly amazed anyone could look at the world around themselves and not believe in God. What you gain from attempting to disprove Christianity, its similar to a bully gaining self confidence by name calling. It only show immaturity, your writing is very misleading.

Nothing in the article was trying to disprove Christianity, only to point out the hypocrisy of bigots who pick and choose pieces of the bible so they can act whichever awful way they want, and the people that excuse them because they just believe so strongly. You can’t disprove something that hasn’t been even tentatively proven, anyway.

The whole point of this article was to point out how badly christians trip over their own religious text. You don’t need to be a religious scholar to have an easy case against the receding moral integrity of the religion you follow. How anyone can actively try to justify what comes out of that book is, quite simply put, beyond me. You certainly will not, however, see them doing it armed with logic and rational thinking. Maybe what they perceive as so, but good luck convincing anyone who isn’t brainwashed or indoctrinated.

OH boy am I in trouble! It all started when I was a little girl and my father went hunting and got a bear and we ate bear meat. Then I fell in love with the Fab Four and got a round haircut, discovered shellfish, piercings, gold, pearls, it has only been downhill from there. Since I don’t think America was ever a Christian country and I don’t believe God is a Capitalist, I am a total apostate anyway…..might as well get a tattoo and grab some guys nuts when he tries to mug my hubby.

Pointing out what was actually written and intended is imminently logical, more so than the fallacies of the original blogger – or are you one of those “tell me what I want to hear, facts are irrelevant” atheists?

Okay WL what do both the Old and New testament say about gossip? Yet you are fine with churches filled to the brim with gossips – they are okay, but someone who is born gay can’t be a Christian? And yahoos like you wonder why Buddhism is more popular than your nasty religion which I call Xtian because you took the Christ right out of Christian. Let’s see, Jesus talked about divorce, adultery, lust, money, giving, compassion, paying taxes, hypocrisy, over and over, and He talked about homosexuality….oh that’s right…. NEVER! Seeing that He is the Son of God sent to inform us of how we should conduct our lives, don’t you think that if it was that important He would have mentioned it at least ONCE? It is important to all you religious fanatics for one of two reasons: either you are a latent homosexualsand you loathe yourself or you are such a low-life, you cheat, you lie, you lust, you break laws and you do not give comfort to the poor & suffering, but you are not gay so you can focus on that to show how superior and holy you are. You stink, I wish you would stop profaning the name of Jesus.

And the whole point of my post was to point out how little atheists really know about this subject. How they can talk about “logic and rational thinking” when they don’t even know what they are talking about – and refuse to learn about – is beyond my comprehension.

You will notice that the original blogger has not returned to defend herself. She just throws a little red meat to the sheeple, and they do the rest. And they call US “brainwashed”.

I know you wont release this and that’s OK, as long as you see it. The true Hypocrisy is quoting from a book you already find to be fiction. Oh but you may say, that’s what others do against me so it’s OK. No, it is not. You have made yourself to be just as guilty as those who condemn you by reading only portions of scripture. Your post is every bit as hateful, ignorant and blasphemous against the will of God as those who choose to use it against what your walk is. There are those of us who do not use the Bible as a weapon and when I see it being used in this manner on either side, I see it as hate and hypocritical on BOTH sides. So tell me, how does this make anything OK when all you did was come against those who do the EXACT same thing to you? The only point you prove is theirs. Ignorance is never excusable no matter what source it comes from.

Each scripture has much more meaning than what is being quoted. It has background, who is speaking, who are they speaking to and what was the point of reference. Even on your own admission all but 1 scripture was from the Old Testament and the One single one you had from the new was fragmented and incomplete leaving out what reasons one can have for a divorce and that the speaker did actually start out by saying he is speaking SOLEY from His own opinion and that it was not a revelation from God.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

He then goes on to talk about murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, dealing with evil, and love of enemies. Not one word about eating oysters, wearing polyester and cotton, playing football, or goofy haircuts.

Who is “fine with churches filled to the brim with gossips”? Speaking of that, you should probably not put your vile words in other people’s mouths even as you claim they are profaning the name of Jesus.

This Jesus of yours sounds more like Ghandi than the Son Of God. The Jesus I know was a Jew to the end. He told his disciple to pay the temple tax. He sent the cleansed lepers to show themselves to the priest. He observed all the Jewish laws and holy days EXCEPT when you need him to be on your side.

The NT argument about homosexuality is moot if you follow the original texts. Paul talks about something, but not homosexuality. There was no word for it at the time. It was a mistranslation by someone with an agenda. But hey, if the mistranslation works to feed your bias, keep using it, rather than educate yourself on the original texts, right?

“What you seem to be failing to take into account is that the god of the Old Testament and the god of the New Testament are the SAME god, and Jesus’ purpose was to fulfill the will of the Father (that same god). Therefore, Jesus was allegedly seated at the right hand of the Father, and looked onward as He endorsed genocide, slavery, and all of the other atrocities written of in the Old Testament.”

I’ll tell you what, Tom, give me the scriptures that endorse genocide and slavery, then tell me what “all of the other atrocities” in the OT are, give me the scriptural proof, and we will go through them one by one.

I agree, bigotry is not acceptable in any way shape or fashion,
Jesus came to love and serve. He ate with sinners because they were who needed him, and what he could give them. He came for those who were sick and poor. Hating on anyone, for any reason is not acceptable! It is not ok! That is not what My savior, Christ, wanted from his followers & it is not what is going to show others how much He loved them.
We all need to remember as we throw biblical quotes around that God’s command was for us to love others as He, Christ, loved us. We cannot stand and judge people if we are loving them, it is physically impossible to hate and love at the same time!
I for one have committed too many sins myself, to even begin to think I could stand in judgement of another. I will follow Christ, and I will love the people of this world no matter what they chose to do.
I will follow Christs example of loving the person, I do not have to like or approve of what they are doing (that is considered sin) because that is not my job… My task given to me is to love…

It is not necessary to read the entire bible (although I have) to criticize its partial followers. All that is necessary is to point out that if one is selective about which parts to insist others obey while being equally selective about which parts one can ignore, then that one is a hypocrite. Either the bible is the absolute word of God or it is not. To say that some arbitrary parts of it were updated by Jesus and that some other arbitrary bits (which bits, I wonder) are subject to mistranslation is to beg the question and invalidate the whole. Who exactly is entitled to decide which parts are out-of-date and which parts are mistranslations? You? If you reject one line, you have no right to insist another line must be followed. It is merely your opinion. You certainly have no right to extrapolate based on modern knowledge when modern knowledge has totally debunked much of what is in the bible.

Here’s a much simpler approach to morality: Does an act do avoidable harm to others? Same-sex marriage certainly does not. Your personal aversion to it is not a good enough justification for destroying another’s happiness. Abortion is a little tougher but you would never have heard a word of complaint from me if my mother had chosen to abort me any more than I would have complained if she had told my father she had a headache on that fateful night of my conception. I care more for the mother and feel that she has a hard enough time making the choice without being cruelly attacked for making it. I do not believe that more than a minute percentage of women take abortion lightly. For the vast majority it is a terribly hard, life-changing decision that should result in a clean, safe medical outcome, not a back-room coathanger job.

Live your own life as you want to and let others do likewise. If they cause unnecessary and unwelcome physical, financial or emotional harm to another, let the laws of society address it. If no harm is done, it’s nobody else’s business at all.

Not every person who reads the Bible and lives their lives as a Christian, will attack other people in the way you are stating. I for one find it very offensive that anyone would wield the word of God as a weapon. As I stated earlier it is not mine nor any others place to sit in judgement, because like everyone we have all sinned, I have sinned, and fall short, Christ came to love and to love abundantly and He commands His followers to do likewise. Also as I stated earlier it is impossible to love and hate at the same time. I am a Christian but I do not presume to tell anyone else that they are damned to hell for their sins, again that is NOT my place, my command that was given to me by my savior Jesus, is to love others as Christ loved me. I cannot do that if I am using His precious word as a weapon and if we cannot see passed the sin to the person beyond, God help us all because then, we are all hypocrites.

As I recall Paul says there are only 3 laws (from the dietary stuff) that Christians need to follow. No fornication, no food sacrificed to idols, and no blood. What I’d like to know is why aren’t Christians picketing the deli counter to get black pudding banned?

In Romans Paul doesn’t even say “homosexual”, he spells it out for you:

“their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men”.

All I claim is God’s grace—which I never earned and don’t deserve. Thank you for writing this article and wording it the way you did. I do not agree with you, but I was forced to think about who Christ is to me–His love for all of us, no matter our haircut or choice of romantic relationship. What is sin can never be holy, but it’s amazing to me how God knew that and Christ came anyway.

A couple points. First, have you ever seen a televangelist hair? This is an automatic express to Hell, or at least should be. Second, the fundamentalist view of ANYTHING either atheist in nature or religious is the real problem. I dont hate. Period. I am a Jew but I don’t allow my choice in faith or an archaic law written 5773 years ago to dictate what I know to be right or wrong. Everyone here is missing the point. It’s all about your personal choice. You can choose to be or do whatever and whomever you want. And you will either answer for it or you wont. Its nobody elses business. Stop spouting all the scripture. Just sayin.

“I’ll tell you what, Tom, give me the scriptures that endorse genocide and slavery, then tell me what “all of the other atrocities” in the OT are, give me the scriptural proof, and we will go through them one by one.” – The Church in the House of Mike and Carol

Fair enough. Let us begin with the following. I’ve excerpted them to make them less reading intensive, but feel free to look them up in their entirety. I didn’t dilute them:

“Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you…You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life…” – Leviticus 25:44-46, excerpted

and,

“When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse…put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies…” – Deuteronomy 20:10-15, excerpted

Albert Einstein was either a deist or pantheist, and mentioned that he could not imagine a god who took interest in the affairs of its creation, but he also thought that atheism was 100% certainty that there was no god (it isn’t), which he thought equally foolish (it would be). Isaac Newton may have done great work for mathematics and physics, but he attempted to dabble in alchemy (transmuting elements into other elements) which we know to be impossible. In fact, many of these people, great minds though they may have been, would likely have had revised positions about many things (including god concepts) if they had access to modern scientific technology and literature. They also lived in a time when expressing skepticism about gods could cost you your life, career, friendships, et cetera. I won’t speculate as to who really believed what and who did not, but keep those factors in mind.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

That’s pretty clear. What Jesus “goes on to say” after that does not in any way diminish the force of what he said before. This is really where apologetics fail. We don’t see this in Luke or Mark (I’m leaving John out as I’m speaking solely about the synoptic gospels at the moment) for a reason: for much of the Mediterranean, the Christ cult was a gentile movement. But the author of Matthew is a Jew, and he’s trying to reach Jews, and that means he has to cast Jesus as a Jew, even an ultra-othodox one. That’s also why there are so many Moses parallels in Matthew that aren’t in the other synoptics.

And therein lies the central fallacy of the apologists. In order to cast off the old law, it must recognize a splintering of the Christian faith less than a century after Jesus’s death. And indeed, within twenty years of his death (if we date Paul’s letter to the Galatians at around 55CE, as many do), there is much evidence of the schism between the Christianity of the Jewish homeland and that in its diaspora.

In short, there is a good reason why the “old law” is cast aside: no gentile in his right mind was going to convert to the Christ cult if it meant also essentially converting to Judaism. Certainly the wealthy, liberated women that financed Paul’s ministry would not have accepted the incredible restrictions Judaism placed on their freedoms. (And don’t bother citing I Corinthians; if you read it in the original Koine Greek and examine the various sources it’s pretty obvious that the verses on women being silent in Church were added almost a century later.)

So Mike & Carol, your worldview is essentially something you’re trying to cobble together from the NT and whatever bits and pieces of the OT you think might support your view of Christ, while creating apologetics for those bits you don’t like, all the while seemingly ignorant of how those bits came to be in existence to begin with.

Congratulations.

I’m not inclined to want to continue this discussion, just so you know. I have several degrees in this stuff, read the NT in the original Greek, have actually handled some of the most ancient biblical texts with my own two hands, etc. As a result, I don’t have a lot of patience for those who haven’t done the work I have, unless I’m being paid for it.

If you have not the love of God and the Holy Spirit you can not understand nor discern the meaning of any of it. It is a fantasy book to those who do not have the Holy Spirit to give understanding and wisdom. I would suggest that you seek God’s spirit to interpret what you read. Otherwise it is just … a book, that you can not possibly understand. THE LIVING WORD, is alive and speaks to those who read it desiring understanding. Not for those who wish to use it to dispense nonsense and cause division among our brothers and sisters. Why bother.. you obviously do not care if it applies or not. God was clear on many things and that would be revealed to you only by the Holy Spirit. I could read about Quantum physics but if I didn’t have a mentor to assist me.. It is all my own interpretation.
I am not a Jew. I understand that there were laws in place and for good reason in the Old Testament. Jesus died for us to remove the law.. not to mention that the Torah read today is not even the original. Faith is what it takes to understand what God wants us to do. If you do not have Faith and Love, you do not have the Holy Spirit discernment to understand any of the Bible. Just my two cents.

Forgiveness covers our failures. Christ died for that reason. We walk in the flesh and will fall.. but he is faithful to forgive.. No one on this earth can follow every tenet nor commandment given, this is why we believe in Christ as the risen “Savior” .. without which.. none would be saved from the trials and temptations that would damn everyone to hell.

My people parish for the lack of knowledge. If you do not study the Word.. you will not understand what God wants from you. All have a purpose .. even prostitutes.. who temp men so that they may overcome it. Atheists.. so that we have people to share the word with. To repent.. is to turn away from.. while I am not God and can not judge.. how do you turn away from sin you have committed all your life and die.. dying is the reason you repent then .. not because you love God, or you would have at least tried to walk with God.. and not with some knowledge that you can sin all you want and be redeemed on your death bed.. it is like Mardi Gras.. if you continue to sin with knowledge and know will do it again.. you are not sorry you did it.. you reveled in it and then you go to a priest and ask for forgiveness… ???? Not acceptable. Because you are not turning away from the sin.. you are just getting your excuse to do it again next year.. and a priest can not forgive you.. only God can.

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

GENOCIDE –
1 Samuel 15:2-3
Thus saith the LORD of hosts … go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Everything in this post is from The Old Testament except the part about divorce. We are told to read The Old Testament only to see the reason Jesus died on the cross for us. He died so that we wouldn’t have to go through all of that anymore. I don’t know what it is this person is trying to do, but it seems to me that he’s trying to turn people away from God and that is the worst sin of them all. Now, I can’t quote the Bible, but somewhere in It, it says that anyone who turns someone away from God will have a very special place in Hell. It also says that this is the only unforgivable sin. It’s called blasphemy. I think everyone on here needs to read the New Testament before they start preaching against God. If you’re preaching against God you are preaching for Satan.
Jesus died for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to burn in Hell for them, and if you except Him as your Savior, and ask Him for His forgiveness He will forgive you, except for blasphemy. This page is clearly blasphemy, and I strongly suggest that everyone reading this get all the fact before you condemn your souls to Hell for all of eternity.
With all of that said, I am not the idea Christian, but I try to live by certain laws other than the one set down by man. I’m not a “Bible Thumper” or “Religious Nut” and I don’t got to church nearly as much as I should. OK I don’t go to church at all, but I have been saved and I try to do right by God.
I didn’t write this comment to preach, and I have no expectations of it getting through to anyone, but I had to say something.

“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke

I’m incredibly confident that the administrator of this blog would be supportive of Seth (a.k.a. “TheThinkingAtheist”) and his promotional video for the Reason Rally. It will be taking place on March 24, 2012, at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. from 10am – 4pm. It is free to attend, and allegedly anticipates being the largest gathering of secular-minded people in history. Though this obviously includes many atheists and agnostics, I don’t see why it couldn’t apply to deists, or even theists, should they be the type to value the inherently objective Constitutional principles against religious favoritism in government affairs. I certainly intend to participate. There are events the day before, as well as others the day or two after. Feel free to visit ReasonRally.org for the full roster of speakers/musicians/comedians, an itinerary, and other details.

Inexact translation; the Hebrew literally means “creepy-crawly things”. Note that bats are similarly grouped with “birds”, presumably because they fly.

Modern classification systems based on underlying biology only date from the 1600s; when the Torah was written “insects” were the small things that crawled around on the ground and sometimes flew with itty bitty wings.

“Act 15:5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”
Act 15:6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter.
Act 15:7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
Act 15:8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us,
Act 15:9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
Act 15:10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
Act 15:11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
Act 15:12 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
Act 15:13 After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me.
Act 15:14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name.
Act 15:15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
Act 15:16 “‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it,
Act 15:17 that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things
Act 15:18 known from of old.’
Act 15:19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God,
Act 15:20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.”

So, “New Testament Scholar”, we see here that in the time of the apostles this question was already answered – Gentiles (that would be non-Jews, if you are an atheist) do NOT have to convert to Judaism to become Christians. The reasons, of course are covered elsewhere in the Bible, specifically by Paul, saying that salvation came first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles, along with references from Isaiah and the Psalms.

So first off, this puts to the lie the assertions that the atheists have made here about Christians having to follow Jewish dietary and ceremonial laws.

Second, if you are indeed a “New Testament Scholar”, you know as well as I do what I am talking about, but I don’t think you are a “New Testament Scholar”, or you would tell us just who you are and where you studied.

You are not the first person to claim credentials they don’t have on the internet.

Oh, by the way – I am a humble servant of God and mankind, and I have all day long for anyone, regardless of how much work he/she has put in, and willing to carry on this conversation as long as anybody is willing, free of charge.

And if you don’t believe in unicorns, you can’t see them. I can’t either, but I know they exist because I have faith and I feel their love in my heart. And because when I was a child my parents gave me a very old book that had pictures of unicorns that explained how important it was to believe in them. And that if I believed in them nothing bad would ever happen to me and when I died I would become a unicorn and roam in the unicorn fields forever. The book said that I must never listen to people who said unicorns don’t exist because their faith is weak and that when they die they will be cast into a pit where their flesh will be eaten by bears forever. How can you not believe in unicorns?????

Understanding that God gave Moses the Book of Law of which you refer to in this blog.. ie: the laws governing Jews in the Old Testament. And he gave him The Law.. which is the Ten Commandments. The old testament laws died on the cross. Jesus came to fulfill the word of prophesy and the Ten Commandments.. To love God above all else and to love each other. Jesus showed that love on the cross, when he took on all of our sins and covered them with his blood.

We are not Jews, therefore, we are not supposed to follow the Old Testament books of law. Those that do are usually the ones who do not believe that Christ (or Yeshua as he is referred to by the Jewish people), is the Messiah and are still waiting for him to come.

Christian is to be a believer in Christ and to follow that which he told his in his time. His teachings. We love all, we live our lifes to the best of our ability according to His Word. We are not perfect. I am not a bigot and I do not judge your destiny. Please do not judge mine.

It grieves me as well as the spirit that people try to dissect the Holy Word of God to appease their own intellectual interests and fanaticism.
I will pray for you, God is the God of the impossible.
Peace!

Christopher Lee.. your reply shows just how ignorant you want to be. I will leave this conversation with this.. I hope your unicorn saves you and if he doesn’t, I hope God does. I won’t argue with stupidity. Believe as you wish.. some people will never see the Truth. I see God all around me. I am sorry you don’t. Peace to you.

You call me ignorant. Yes I am ignorant when it comes to understanding the difference between the ridiculous post i wrote and your claims for your very old book. You are so sure you are right in spite of the fact that most of the people in the world today disagree with you. And only a scant few thousand years ago, everyone disagreed with you. Why did God wait so long before revealing himself? Why did he let so many souls die unshriven before turning up and telling the Jews they could go and smite the patooties out of the people in the land that HE had suddenly decided should be theirs? Come on. THINK! It doesn’t make any sense at all unless you’re standing at the wrong end of a very long telescope. Be brave. Don’t be afraid. It’s not half as scary as people make out. Step away from it for a minute and look at it objectively and you will see just how ridiculous it all is. If I said to you “I see unicorns all around me. I’m sorry you don’t,” you would think I was sadly disillusioned or possibly a little mad. Well guess what. So far nobody has come up with one scintilla of evidence for the existence of God and every argument fails. “God saved me” (but wiped out all the people who were with me on the plane when it crashed). “God moves in mysterious ways and we don’t understand his plan” (no, I don’t understand it either when he lets millions of people who have done nothing to anybody starve, die of disease and be blown apart in wars while others live in the lap of luxury. “My religion is true – all others are false” (which is what they all say). Sorry, but It just doesn’t work.

Thomas, I am laughing at your little religious gathering in Washington. Are you “free thinkers” going to meet in Washington to engage in the group-think propagated by this web page and the individuals who have left comments here?

As I have pointed out before, Evangelical atheists are no different from other religious fanatics, the only difference is the message. This is hardly surprising, since most of you have seen fit to throw in some liberal cause into your list of demands, and liberals are the only people in the world who become enraged at the notion that there is someone, somewhere, who doesn’t think the way they do.

Well, liberals and radical Islam, maybe. They can’t stand the fact that the Jews exist, and liberals can’t stand the fact that we exist.

I’ll tell you what; why don’t you anti-religious types go convert Iran, and I’ll deal with whoever is left. It will save me, and millions of other Christians, who simply want to be left alone, a lot of time.

People who engage in group identity or group politics are morons, small people who have no self worth on their own so they join a bigoted group to make themselves feel empowered. Nazis, the KKK, Westboro Baptists, radical atheism come to mind. In order to make yourself bigger, you have to make the other guy smaller. Hence the existence of pages like this one. I have read some of the other pages linked here and the fear and self loathing present in their words is stunning.

This is not “tolerance”, and it sure as hell isn’t intellectual. I find it highly amusing when one of you implore us to “think for ourselves” because as a group radical atheism never thinks for itself. You are all waiting for the next web page or the next atheism prophet to come along and tell them what to think, and when they do, the writings of their latest book or web page start showing up in your comments.

You will never be able to pin me down on my position because YOU DON’T KNOW MY POSITION. All you have are templates from other atheist rant pages that don’t even remotely resemble my beliefs, but you try like hell to make them fit my beliefs because you are not interested in a dialogue, most of you are just an answer looking for a question.

None of you realize that a lot of us are into Christianity for a lot more than a “get out of hell free” card. If it turns out that we all go to the grave after this life, Christianity is STILL worth practicing, whether you like it or not, because it embodies the best we can all do – teachings that you want us all to live by but would never live up to yourselves. And it would never occur to you to “live and let live”, because, again, you are not about tolerance. You are about making yourself feel better at the expense of others.

I address these words to you because you seem to be one of the more thoughtful people on this thread. Wake up, look around you.

I’d like to clarify a few things for you, but **do not** allow me to distract you from that research you said you’d be doing on those verses you requested from me.

“Thomas, I am laughing at your little religious gathering in Washington…people who engage in group identity or group politics are morons, small people who have no self worth on their own so they join a bigoted group to make themselves feel empowered. Nazis, the KKK, Westboro Baptists, radical atheism come to mind.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

You name three right-wing Christian organizations, and then atheism? One of these things is not like the other. If this were a racial equality movement in the 1960’s, and I were going to Washington, D.C. in the anticipation of meeting Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other figureheads of the movement, “racial equality” would not be a “religion,” and I would not be “worshiping” those men. Your attempt at trivializing my cause is both impotent and misinformed. Any group of people valuing something in common must unify to have their collective voices heard by politicians and peers alike; that’s how women ended discrimination, that’s how minority races ended discrimination, that’s how gays are working to end discrimination, and that’s how *we* must work to end discrimination.

“liberals are the only people in the world who become enraged at the notion that there is someone, somewhere, who doesn’t think the way they do….I’ll tell you what; why don’t you anti-religious types go convert Iran, and I’ll deal with whoever is left. It will save me, and millions of other Christians, who simply want to be left alone, a lot of time.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

Actually, Mark 16:15 instructs believers to “go and preach the gospel to all creation.” It’s not enough that you believe it, everyone needs to hear it and believe it. *You* may wish to be “left alone,” but efforts are constantly being made by your constituents to erode the wall of separation between church and state, to make Judeo-Christianity the official national religion, to have its tenets implemented into our legislation, and to pervade our educational institutions with the pseudo-science of “Intelligent Design.” For this action must come an opposite (if not equal) reaction from myself and others, to prevent this country from transitioning into a dark-age theocracy under our noses.

“If it turns out that we all go to the grave after this life, Christianity is STILL worth practicing, whether you like it or not, because it embodies the best we can all do” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

Some of the selective readings of the New Testament about love, friendship, et cetera isn’t all that bad, but you’ll recall that 2 Timothy 3:16 states that “all scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for training in a life of righteousness.”

All of it.

When a book says that it is transcribed by God himself, and that God or his ordained representatives would have *ever* endorsed slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46), women being inferior to men (1 Timothy 2:11-14), killing one’s wife, children, friends, or neighbors if they try to lead you away from God (Deuteronomy 13:6-10), forcing women to marry their rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), the death penalty for working on the seventh day (Exodus 31:12-15), death to women who weren’t virgins on their wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:20-21), death for blasphemy (Leviticus 24:10-16), and numerous other acts coupled with punitive sentences ranging from impractical to insane, it is clear to a rational person that philosophies which do not make appeals to this deity are the most balanced.

You told me earlier that “you anti-religious types should go try to convert Iran,” which is like telling a doctor to go work on the Stage 4 cancer patient, rather than the patient whose cancer is still operable and treatable. I need to stay here precisely because if myself and others do not, America will BE Iran. All of the egregious ethical trespasses you witness in the paragraph above may potentially be made manifest again, just as they had been for centuries past. I must do what I can within my lifetime to assure that it does not…

Let me know when your research on those other verses from the previous post comes to fruition, Mike.

All of you are using modern texts. The word homosexuality did not even exist until centuries after the original texts were written. If you go back to the very original languages, you’ll find that there’s no real ban against homosexuality at all. The King James version, accepted by most as the ‘right’ version, is completely bastardized and entire sections and words changed to promote what the secular rulers of the time wanted promoted.

Christianity had many interpretations until it was completely subverted by Constantine in 312 to rally the local Christians to his standards. He later made sure it was legalized in 313 to consolidate his political power, and brought the sects he approved of together under one orthodoxy in 325. Theodosius 1 made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 when pagan worship was outlawed (but all pagan holidays converted to Christian holidays to pacify the heretofore unconverted masses and avoid the necessity of the usual form of conversion – the sword.)

The Bible was not created in King James English. Hundreds of books in dozens of languages originally accepted as part of the Bible have been discarded by different political leaders over the decades. Most references to what we now call homosexuality have been repeatedly and deliberately mistranslated on “I don’t think that means what you think it means” applies.

And unless you personally met Paul, spoke his language, and had a voice recorder with perfect translation abilities, anything you say is your opinion and nothing more. (For that matter, anything Paul ever said was his own opinion and nothing more, but that’s another topic for another day.)

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

GENOCIDE –
1 Samuel 15:2-3
Thus saith the LORD of hosts … go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Deuteronomy 2 2:33-35
And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain.”
At God’s instructions, the Israelites “utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones” leaving “none to remain.”

Numbers 16:44-50
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces. And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun. And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah. And Aaron returned unto Moses unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the plague was stayed.

1 Kings 11:15-16
For it came to pass, when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain, after he had smitten every male in Edom; (For six months did Joab remain there with all Israel, until he had cut off every male in Edom:)

Mike, your existence isn’t what bothers us; it’s the fact that you keep trying to force your version of ethics and morality onto everyone else that bothers us. All we want is you and your fellow religious fundamentalists to leave us alone.

“You name three right-wing Christian organizations, and then atheism?”

No, I named three organizations based on bigotry. Atheists have been trying to pin the “Christian” label on Hitler for years, and it’s not any truer today than it was the first time I heard it. If that’s the way you want it, then I say that atheistic governments like Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot make Hitler look like a piker when it comes to genocide.

And that really happened, I am not arguing against a being that I don’t even believe exists.

Your “cause” is not one of freedom for yourselves or others, it is a movement that seeks to limit Constitutional freedoms for your fellow Americans. It is simply none of your business what another believes, and your irrational slippery slope arguments about this country turning into Iran if religious freedoms are allowed to continue is nothing more than paranoia. I have lived long enough to see America as a free country, it is “causes” like yours that have enslaved both me and you.

Now, go ahead and tell me how a God you claim to not believe in endorses slavery when you are, in fact, endorsing slavery yourself.

Here’s another gem:

“Any group of people valuing something in common must unify to have their collective voices heard by politicians and peers alike; that’s how women ended discrimination, that’s how minority races ended discrimination, that’s how gays are working to end discrimination, and that’s how *we* must work to end discrimination.”

Discrimination has not ended, it has merely taken another form. Your own words indict you, you have just found someone else to discriminate against. We advocate voluntarily changing hearts and minds (if you were open minded you would know that, that’s what MLK wanted) not forcing people to mouth political correctness under force of law.

In other words, you can’t make a convincing argument, so you have to demand that others think like you by force of law.

“Actually, Mark 16:15 instructs believers to “go and preach the gospel to all creation.”

And that’s all it says. Your editorial comments are not in the text and nothing short of dishonest.

“*You* may wish to be “left alone,” but efforts are constantly being made by your constituents to erode the wall of separation between church and state, to make Judeo-Christianity the official national religion, to have its tenets implemented into our legislation, and to pervade our educational institutions with the pseudo-science of “Intelligent Design.”

The “wall of separation between church and state” does not exist in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Federalist Papers.

That said, Christians practicing their religion is not an effort to make any religion the national religion. The fact is that no exclusively Christian tenets (unless you think not murdering or not stealing is an exclusively Christian tenet. If that’s the case, I am more worried than ever.

And by the way, the only “pseudo science” I know of that is being taught in public schools is global warming.

“Some of the selective readings of the New Testament about love, friendship, et cetera isn’t all that bad, but you’ll recall that 2 Timothy 3:16 states that “all scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for training in a life of righteousness.”

That’s true, but most people who read it know the difference between a prescriptive and a descriptive text. Tell me, do you think I need to take up the sword and slay the Midianites???

A historical account of anything is not a command for you to go and do likewise. The triumphs and the mistakes of others are for you to learn from. Only a fool would say otherwise.

“When a book says that it is transcribed by God himself, and that God or his ordained representatives would have *ever* endorsed slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46), women being inferior to men (1 Timothy 2:11-14), killing one’s wife, children, friends, or neighbors if they try to lead you away from God (Deuteronomy 13:6-10), forcing women to marry their rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), the death penalty for working on the seventh day (Exodus 31:12-15), death to women who weren’t virgins on their wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:20-21), death for blasphemy (Leviticus 24:10-16), and numerous other acts coupled with punitive sentences ranging from impractical to insane, it is clear to a rational person that philosophies which do not make appeals to this deity are the most balanced.”

Perhaps you can tell me when the last time any of those things happened was. There is no Christian on earth who would endorse any of those things because, as I have already pointed out, we are not ancient Hebrews and we don’t claim to be ancient Hebrews – you are the one making that claim.

“You told me earlier that “you anti-religious types should go try to convert Iran,” which is like telling a doctor to go work on the Stage 4 cancer patient, rather than the patient whose cancer is still operable and treatable. I need to stay here precisely because if myself and others do not, America will BE Iran.”

This is nothing short of insanity.

For your information, America was a LOT freer before people like Barry Lynn and Madeline O’Hair started “helping” us. Some of you had to tolerate the opinions of others, but that’s what you say you want, anyway.

“Mike, your existence isn’t what bothers us; it’s the fact that you keep trying to force your version of ethics and morality onto everyone else that bothers us. All we want is you and your fellow religious fundamentalists to leave us alone.”

From where I sit it is you who is trying to force your version of ethics and morality on ME.

Okay, I wanted to read the context of these verses. If you read what is framing the whole discussion in Leviticus 25:44-46, it is the Year of Jubilee, in which slaves (who were more like indentured servants in those days) were to be set free and debts forgiven. You won’t find that in the sex trade in say, Thailand, NOT a Christian nation.

As I have already pointed out, though, Christians are not ancient Hebrews, and it is Christians who started the movement to outlaw slavery worldwide in the first place. Ever hear of William Wilberforce?

In the second scripture you offer, God is giving rules of engagement to an ancient people trying to preserve their own bloodline, ledt they be wiped out by their own enemies.

You make it sound as though the enemies of the ancient Hebrews were just minding their own business when these nasty Jews just came up and attacked them. In reality, there was fighting going on constantly (kinda like there is now).

And no, I didn’t “prove his point” because his “point” had nothing to do with Peter’s encounter with Cornelius.

All he did was claim that Paul’s wealthy female benefactors wouldn’t want to covert to Judaism (without proof), make some baseless claims about how the “splintering of the Christian faith”, then tell me that his argument was above reproach and that he wasn’t about to stay and defend it.

The interlocutor known as “Church in the House of Mike and Carol” suspiciously always starts off with 5 stars and a single ‘like,’ presumably his own. Mike, I told you not to get so caught up on my most recent statements that you would get distracted from telling me how that research went, on the verses *you requested.* I mentioned at the beginning of my detailed opining, as well as at the end, not to get hung up on it. I’ve been up for 24 hours, but I’ll be back to have more fun with you in the morning.

Well, Tom, I gave you the answer that I thought I would give you (I just wanted to be sure), and it’s ironic that your verse on slavery happened to be in the middle of a chapter concerning the “Year of Jubilee” of all things, which concerns itself with the freeing of slaves and the return of property, not the taking of slaves.

My reply is under your original query. Your question on “genocide” are merely rules of engagement for known enemies of the Hebrews. I am sorry that the description upsets your 21st century stomach, but the world was a brutal place back then.

If you have another question for me, make it a good one (and not more atheist talking points), because I have seen on this page that for those who want to understand, very little explanation is necessary, for those who do not want to understand, no explanation will suffice.

One more thing: It was Christians who started the ball rolling on banning slavery worldwide, NOT atheists. So we have established that we are NOT ancient Hebrews and we don’t have to be, that we were the ones who wanted to ban slavery in the first place, and that in non-Christian countries, slavery still exists while atheists apathetically look on, especially the atheists in this country.

History is not on your side, and you and your fellows paranoia stems from the pages of a book you yourself say is fiction.

That’s pretty ridiculous, if you claim to be fans of logic and reason.

“Perhaps you can tell me when the last time any of those things happened was. There is no Christian on earth who would endorse any of those things because, as I have already pointed out, we are not ancient Hebrews and we don’t claim to be ancient Hebrews – you are the one making that claim.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

I’m not claiming that you are a Hebrew. I *am* claiming that your god Yahweh is the god of the Hebrews. Adherents to Yahweh believe that He is the Author of objective morality. If you aren’t familiar with “objective vs. subjective” as outlined in philosophy, “subjective” values are those determined by common consensus or majority opinion. “Objective” values are intrinsically wrong in and of themselves, regardless of fluctuating opinion. It is a salient, stand-alone assertion.

If God authors “objective” moral values, then things which are inherently “wrong” are independently wrong yesterday, today, and forever. The values of human freedom, suffering, and life could not have fluctuated on a just God’s scale. If they ever varied, then they are not *constant* values, and this entirely undermines their philosophical “objectiveness.” A good, omniscient God would never say “times are brutal right now, and so slavery and murder are temporarily okay,” they would *set the precedent* by teaching that these acts are unacceptable, issuing the standard, and upholding objective moral values.

I don’t have to tell you that this is not what we see in the Bible. Any Christian would endorse anything God asked, because to them, if God asked it, it “becomes good.” They laud Abraham as a reverent patriarch, and honor him for being willing to lift the knife at God’s behest to sacrifice his own son, even though he was ultimately called off. That is the lesson here: no life takes precedence over God’s whim; abhorrent, and not philosophically objective in the least.

“Atheists have been trying to pin the “Christian” label on Hitler for years, and it’s not any truer today than it was the first time I heard it. If that’s the way you want it, then I say that atheistic governments like Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot make Hitler look like a piker when it comes to genocide.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

Regardless of his sincerity about Christianity or not, his German citizens were almost exclusively Roman Catholic, and so it doesn’t speak well for them. “God with Us” on their belt buckles, Nazi prayers, and other media propaganda support his being a theist of some sort. At any rate, atheists don’t have doctrines they need to accept in order to qualify, so atheists aren’t complicit with the actions of other atheists. I’m also a vegan, and if some vegans bomb animal testing laboratories, attack factory farms, or kill furriers, it does nothing to make me guilty by association, nor does it undermine the ethical superiority of veganism and/or the cause of animal rights, because it is an *absence* of something, not acceptance of something, which qualifies a person. The real enemy in the case of these despotic tyrants is totalitarianism, which is evil in all cases theistic or atheistic.

In the case of God’s totalitarianism, Yahweh makes the ultimatum of “love me, or be destroyed for eternity.” Because eternity is literally infinite time, compared to the infinitesimally brief relative existence on this planet by which to be judged, God is ethically worse than any human could be, ad infinitum.

“And that really happened, I am not arguing against a being that I don’t even believe exists.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

I believe the Israelites exterminated the surrounding tribes; I just don’t believe a man in the sky was speaking to them.

“Your “cause” is not one of freedom for yourselves or others, it is a movement that seeks to limit Constitutional freedoms for your fellow Americans.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

That is complete tripe. The selling point of secularism is “equal, or no representation in government.” Christians are free to pray at home, in church, hell, they can even break out their Bibles at school and gather at lunch for worship; what they can *not* do is have state or nationally sanctioned prayer to a specific god, when the holding of said event, or media coverage of said event utilizes everyone’s tax dollars to do so. If someone wants the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) posted publicly, it ought to be surrounded by tenets from every other faith wishing to be represented, or it should not be displayed at all.” In John Stuart’s words, “Christians don’t want ‘equal’ representation, but rather, ‘superior’ representation.”

“The ‘wall of separation between church and state’ does not exist in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Federalist Papers.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

By this, you may be free to practice (or not practice) whatever religion you want, but the government must never incorporate the official doctrine or tenets of any one religion into our legislation. You are correct in saying that “thou shalt not kill, murder, et cetera” are not exclusively Christian values. Almost every faith has had, at the heart of it, a variant archetype of the “Golden Rule.” In fact, Jainism is arguably the best at upholding these tenets unconditionally, as opposed to the Abrahamic faiths.

This is an example of the problem that happens when verses are taken out of context. Sadly, too often the Bible is taught this way. If you skip around in a Harry Potter novel and pick out a sentence here and there, it makes no sense to you because it is taken out of context. The same is true of the Bible. Many of the prohibitions you mentioned above were at the time practices of people groups living around the Israelites that were pagan and had child sacrifice, etc. God did not want the Hebrew people drifting into the pagan practices. Tattoos were not a fashion choice at the time the prohibition was written, they were part of pagan ritual. The ban on seafood helped to protect the people since there was no FDA standard or knowledge about microscopic parasites that could do harm.

The Bible requires careful objective study as a whole and research to be understood. If you go into the Bible in a sporadic way to prove a subjective point of view, you both miss its meaning and misrepresent its meaning. As for gay issues, what do you do with the message from the human body itself? Two men together cannot produce a child. Neither can two women. And the body parts used in those situations are designed for different functions then what they are used for. I am not apathetic about the struggles of people who have same sex urges, but I don’t understand how they want acceptance and not to be called bad names, but they go ahead and refuse to look at Christians objectively, and call the Christians bad names, like “religious fanatic”. Double standard?

“I’m not claiming that you are a Hebrew. I *am* claiming that your god Yahweh is the god of the Hebrews. Adherents to Yahweh believe that He is the Author of objective morality. If you aren’t familiar with “objective vs. subjective” as outlined in philosophy, “subjective” values are those determined by common consensus or majority opinion. “Objective” values are intrinsically wrong in and of themselves, regardless of fluctuating opinion. It is a salient, stand-alone assertion.”

Well, all I can say to that is that it’s a lot easier to refute our beliefs when you are the one telling us what to believe. If you are not familiar with the “straw man fallacy” as outlined in philosophy, look it up. We use a lot of words for God – the “author of objective morality” isn’t one of them.

We all know YOU are the author of objective morality, not God, Tom, and that YOU decide what’s right and what’s wrong. .

Besides, you say there is no god – just evolution, and that alone decides who lives and who dies through natural selection. I’ll bet you think murdering the unborn is a “woman’s right”, yet you will whine to me about the people who were killed in a fictitious book while real people are murdered, and you say nothing.

You can’t have it both ways.

“I don’t have to tell you that this is not what we see in the Bible. Any Christian would endorse anything God asked, because to them, if God asked it, it “becomes good.”

Don’t be an ass. How would it be if I claimed that any atheist, confronted by a miraculous healing from God, would call it “bad”. (Although they might, who knows? Nothing surprises me any longer.)

“God with Us” on their belt buckles, Nazi prayers, and other media propaganda support his being a theist of some sort.”

That’s a load of crap. Hitler hated Christianity but he used it to his own advantage. Not the last con man to claim to be doing good, like the one in the White House right now.

“I’m also a vegan, and if some vegans bomb animal testing laboratories, attack factory farms, or kill furriers, it does nothing to make me guilty by association, nor does it undermine the ethical superiority of veganism and/or the cause of animal rights, because it is an *absence* of something, not acceptance of something, which qualifies a person. The real enemy in the case of these despotic tyrants is totalitarianism, which is evil in all cases theistic or atheistic.”

Those people are terrorists, and I, being a thinking person, know the difference between a terrorist and a vegan, which gives me a leg up on you, since you don’t know the difference between a Christian and a mass murderer. Worse, you refuse to be educated.

“In the case of God’s totalitarianism, Yahweh makes the ultimatum of “love me, or be destroyed for eternity.”

That’s BS, too. God’s official position is that if you want to go to hell, He will let you.

If you want out, he can arrange that. too.

“I believe the Israelites exterminated the surrounding tribes; I just don’t believe a man in the sky was speaking to them.”

“That is complete tripe. The selling point of secularism is “equal, or no representation in government.”

You are not selling secularism, you are selling totalitarianism.

There is no “man in the sky”. Your theology is as bad as your reasoning. What you are doing is known as anthropomorphism: God is not a human being, any more than animals are people. (Sorry to break the news to you on the animal thing).

“Christians are free to pray at home, in church, hell, they can even break out their Bibles at school and gather at lunch for worship; what they can *not* do is have state or nationally sanctioned prayer to a specific god, when the holding of said event, or media coverage of said event utilizes everyone’s tax dollars to do so. If someone wants the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) posted publicly, it ought to be surrounded by tenets from every other faith wishing to be represented, or it should not be displayed at all.” In John Stuart’s words, “Christians don’t want ‘equal’ representation, but rather, ‘superior’ representation.”

Christians are free to pray anywhere they want. There is no Constitutional prohibition against that, and the idiotic and non-Constitutional arguments that saying a prayer in a school is tantamount to “Congress making a law” is absurd on the face of it. You are merely parroting what you have heard your atheist heroes say.

Think for yourself, and show me where in the Constitution where public prayer is not allowed, without conflating the issue with extra-constitutional arguments from anti-religionists.

You can’t do it.

We are rapidly reaching a point in this country when the majority will get tired of ridiculous, illegal, and counter-intuitive demands like yours and will tell you to go to hell if you try to enforce them. It’s already happening with the Catholic church and Obamacare. Personally, I hope the Catholic Bishops tell him to stuff it.

Where’s your “separation of church and state” now?

“In fact, Jainism is arguably the best at upholding these tenets unconditionally, as opposed to the Abrahamic faiths.”

I couldn’t help but notice the swastika in the Jainism symbol.

By the way, I have been reading your Facebook page. I sincerely hope your efforts bring forth fruit and your President’s Day sale at Belk’s is successful.

That said, I was hoping that twentysomething individuals like yourself would have aimed a little higher in life, perhaps by finding the cure for cancer while you still know everything. As you get older, it is more difficult to hang onto universal knowledge.

Joking aside, hate is a huge waste of time. You are just parroting the words of a political lobby that will sell you down the river as fast as it would sell me down the river, maybe faster. Remember what Martin Niemöller said:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Strange how you like to give the proper context (aka spin) on the parts the bible you don’t like..but refuse to give the same context when discussing the parts you like. Is it not true that when leviticus was written that population growth was of maximum importance as your God needed an army. Therefore, given that context the “law” against homosexuality was needed. However, just like the other biblical laws you claim don’t apply today, we don’t need rapid population growth in todays world. We have 7 billion people on the planet and many are already starving to death. So, until you want to apply your same post hoc rational to the parts of the bible you don’t like to the parts you do, I suggest you stop displaying your utter hypocricy in public.

Regarding your objection to homosexuality is based on body parts being used for things they weren’t “designed” for, why isn’t the Christian community up in arms about anal sex between a male and a female, oral sex, or handjobs. Stop hiding behind your god and just come out and admit you don’t like gay people. At least have the common courtesy and guts to stop hiding behind your god.

“Well, all I can say to that is that it’s a lot easier to refute our beliefs when you are the one telling us what to believe. If you are not familiar with the “straw man fallacy” as outlined in philosophy, look it up. We use a lot of words for God – the “author of objective morality” isn’t one of them.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

You’re perhaps unfamiliar with Professor William Lane Craig, one of the leading contemporary debating apologists for the Judeo-Christian faith. Here is an excerpt from one of his opening speeches:

“Moral values have to do with what is good or evil. On the theistic view objective moral values are grounded in God. As St. Anselm saw, God is by definition the greatest conceivable being and therefore the highest Good. Indeed, He is not merely perfectly good; He is the locus and paradigm of moral value. God’s own holy and loving nature supplies the absolute standard against which all actions are measured. He is by nature loving, generous, faithful, kind, and so forth. Thus if God exists, objective moral values exist, wholly independent of human beings.” – source: http://www.facebook.com/notes/reasonable-faith/text-of-my-opening-speech-in-the-harris-debate/147379088662327

This argument, and ones like it, are common enough in both the plebeian and professional circles alike, and so I did not feel that countering it was the “straw man” which you perceived it to be. If you’re going to be so active in forums, you might choose to watch a few of the highest caliber debates.

“That’s a load of crap. Hitler hated Christianity but he used it to his own advantage. Not the last con man to claim to be doing good, like the one in the White House right now.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

I didn’t say I was assured that he was a Christian. I assured 1.) his supporters were primarily Catholic, and 2.) he was a theist; a believer in *a* higher power of some sort. Considering the contradicting statements he made about Christianity, his official stance at any given time remains dubious.

“God’s official position is that if you want to go to hell, He will let you.
If you want out, he can arrange that. too.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

We’ve simplified this down to its least common denominator. You feel as though God gives us a choice. I feel it is akin to me proposing to a woman, and if she doesn’t consent, torturing and killing her. We’re going to have to agree to disagree.

“I’ll bet you think murdering the unborn is a ‘woman’s right,’ yet you will whine to me about the people who were killed in a fictitious book while real people are murdered, and you say nothing.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

Which causes more suffering: breaking a chicken egg which has just been fertilized, or killing a grown chicken. The answer is the chicken, because it has a nervous system. If the universe were nothing but inorganic, unconscious matter, there would be no ethical obligation to rocks. To answer your question, I am for a woman’s right to choose, but *only* before the mass of cells develops a brain or nerves. The moment the synapses can transmit pain, it is a sentient being, and I take up an ethical charge to prevent it from suffering. This system develops early in the first trimester, but until it develops said nervous system, it is nothing other than a mass of cells, same as a wart, my hair, or any other part of a body. To say that a blastocyst is a “person” in the sense that you and I are is no more true than the notion than an acorn is an oak tree.

In contrast, the Jews believed that the soul entered the body when it drew its first breath. You might also ask yourself why you support a God who would destroy children who haven’t reached the age of reason:

“The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open.” – Yahweh, Hosea 13:16

“I couldn’t help but notice the swastika in the Jainism symbol.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

I couldn’t help but notice that the Nazi’s stole that symbol from them and reversed it to clockwise, and that centuries before that, the counter-clockwise symbol was considered a divine token of fortune:

“Those people [extremist animal rights activists] are terrorists, and I, being a thinking person, know the difference between a terrorist and a vegan, which gives me a leg up on you, since you don’t know the difference between a Christian and a mass murderer.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

I considered the initial attempt to draw a parallel between all atheists and dictators of godless totalitarian regimes, and I wanted to be sure that you knew the difference between a despot and an atheist. I realize that many Christians don’t support hate, violence, or discrimination; they simply devote their lives to supporting a book that supports hate, violence and discrimination.

“God is not a human being, any more than animals are people. (Sorry to break the news to you on the animal thing).” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

I wonder if you believe that DNA is useful for incriminating murderers and rapists. I wonder if you believe that DNA can determine the paternity of a baby. I wonder if you’re aware that we’ve sequenced the entire human genome. I wonder if you’re aware that we can unravel DNA and correlate the patterns within to test for compatibility between species at an incredibly precise level. You may also find it interesting that all other hominids have 24 pairs of chromosomes, except for humans, who have 23 pairs; this is because Human Chromosome 2 is a telomere-to-telomere fusion of two previous hominid chromosomes.

Even if this planet had been destroyed and we’d taken a “Noah’s Ark” into space to another planet, our hereditary lineage would still be apparent with the correct techniques and technology. Creation myths from gods regarding life’s divergent path of variety, including the Abrahamic god’s, are incontrovertibly false.

“Christians are free to pray anywhere they want.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

They should be. They should be able to think whatever they wish, and express their thoughts wherever they wish, so long as state or government money are not involved. If the state pays teachers, then the principal should not call a “prayer meeting” on school time for one sole religion. If taxes pay for the courts, then no sole religion’s artifacts or documents should be featured there. You wouldn’t want taxes paying for a public or state official to say, “I’d like for all of you gathered here to take a moment to think about how god may not actually be there,” would you? The issue should be a neutral non-factor for state and government, but people must be free anywhere and anytime else. I personally don’t get upset about nativity scenes at churches, because it’s the church’s property, and they should express what they wish, albeit them being tax exempt is preposterous. That’s another story…

“Besides, you say there is no god – just evolution, and that alone decides who lives and who dies through natural selection.” – – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

My perspective would also be that evolution is the reason why we have developed the cognitive capacity for reason, logic, philosophy, et cetera. We can decide to be constructive, or we can decide to be destructive. If we see value in being constructive, we can use psychology and neurology to understand how we operate, and what is most conducive to our minds and bodies flourishing. We can philosophize better ways to empathize, sympathize, and act toward one another. Regardless of the source of our brains, we have them and can use them the same.

At any rate, this thread has expanded to monumental proportions, and I’ll be breaking free from it for a while. I actually haven’t worked at Belk for a couple of months (seasonal temp work), and so I should change my information. Upon attending the Reason Rally, I’ll be departing for a nationwide cross-country bicycle expedition to backpack for 2-3 months. I’ll be doing plenty more reading along the way. I’d encourage you to look up information about debates (such as William Lane Craig’s) to update yourself on the forefront of these modern discussions. Though I don’t agree with Craig, his discussions with Shelly Kagan and Sam Harris were my favorites.

I try to maintain the credo that “my enemies are ideologies, not individuals.” I was raised Christian from birth to 20 years of age, and I wouldn’t have revised my position if people had been hostile toward me as an individual, or spoken to me as though I were daft. Likewise, I try to be civil, but discussions as passionate as these ones about the larger questions can leave members on both sides exasperated with one another. I apologize as a human, to a human, for any animosity of the undue variety that I may have directed toward “Mike,” as opposed to “Mike’s god.” Farewell for now. Hopefully I can manage not to be lured back into another of these fervent, prolific discussions any time too soon.

Re-reading my own reply a minute ago made me realize I should have been clearer on a couple of points. You wrote: ““I’m not claiming that you are a Hebrew. I *am* claiming that your god Yahweh is the god of the Hebrews. Adherents to Yahweh believe that He is the Author of objective morality.”

No, that’s not what we believe. What we believe is that God is working His plan out and that His plan is good. It has nothing to do with whether you or I or anyone else think it’s moral or immoral. I will explain:

Jesus the Christ himself was martyred as the one sacrifice for the sins of all mankind – the ultimate Kobayashi Maru scenario. Whether you believe such a thing really happened or not, the thought experiment goes like this: if one man gives his life to save millions, is it a good thing or a bad thing? If you say it’s a good thing, then you still have to deal with the brutal murder of an individual. If you say it’s a bad thing, then I would ask you how you can justify sacrificing billions of souls to save one person.

So what do you do? There are times when someone has to die and someone has to live, and you have to decide who it is. It’s one thing to second guess an ancient text that may or may not have come to pass in reality, and it’s quite another to watch it in real life and glibly declare what is right and what is wrong from your high horse.

Soldiers, policemen, and world leaders make this decision every day. We say God does, too, on a much bigger scale, and the answers are not quite as black and white as you want to make them, because in doing so you blur the line between “objective” and “subjective”.

On the other hand, If there is no God and we are merely products of evolution, then the only thing that matters is survival of the fittest, and the pain and suffering that “the fittest” inflict on the rest of the world isn’t evil at all—it’s simply evolution. It’s nature. We do not blame lions for eating antelope. There’s nothing moral about their behavior. But for some reason we do sense something wrong when a lion mauls a person, and we draw the line completely when people abuse or kill other people. We feel a sense of moral outrage at such behavior. And atheists feel it too. Because of that moral outrage, they argue that there cannot be a loving God. But in making this argument they fail to ask where their moral outrage comes from in the first place! They have no reason to be outraged if there is no God, but their outrage is the reason for claiming there is no God. Without God, the problem doesn’t exist; that is, in an evolutionary universe, pain is natural—there is nothing abnormal about it—and our aversion to it on moral grounds is merely the product of a strong survival instinct and a nervous system wired for pain. In other words, if the atheists are right about God, then our outrage toward pain is mere wish fulfillment, like our desire for heaven. If it is wish fulfillment, then the atheists are hypocrites because, in regard to pain, they’ve been wishing the same thing as the rest of us.

You also wrote this:

“Regardless of his sincerity about Christianity or not, his German citizens were almost exclusively Roman Catholic, and so it doesn’t speak well for them. “God with Us” on their belt buckles, Nazi prayers, and other media propaganda support his being a theist of some sort. At any rate, atheists don’t have doctrines they need to accept in order to qualify, so atheists aren’t complicit with the actions of other atheists. I’m also a vegan, and if some vegans bomb animal testing laboratories, attack factory farms, or kill furriers, it does nothing to make me guilty by association, nor does it undermine the ethical superiority of veganism and/or the cause of animal rights, because it is an *absence* of something, not acceptance of something, which qualifies a person. The real enemy in the case of these despotic tyrants is totalitarianism, which is evil in all cases theistic or atheistic.”

In one breath you condemn German Catholics for what happened in Nazi Germany then in the next breath you absolve yourself for things other vegans do on the grounds that you were not a part of the their terrorism.

I don’t suppose it would ever occur to you that many German citizens weren’t on board with Hitler’s plans, either. In fact, there were many German Christians who went to the gas chambers right along with the Jews. One German Christian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was hanged by a piano wire, naked, for plotting to kill Hitler
to end his reign of terror. Could you do such a thing? Or would you fall for Hitler’s persuasive speeches?

Yet you and the others on this website would paint all Christians and Jews with the same brush to further your own political ends. This is bigotry, plain and simple, and it is the biggest con of all, to accuse your enemy of doing the very thing that you yourself are doing. You do it because you don’t know any different – you have been conditioned by a generation of politicos to believe that Christians and Jews are your enemies, and in generations to come school kids will study about you and your ilk and wonder how you could be so blind as to stand by and watch the government oppress the Christian and Jewish peoples of the world with the lessons of Nazi Germany still fresh in your mind.

I’ll put it in terms that even you can understand: Take the red pill, Neo. Some of us fought wars to keep other men from being enslaved by oppressive rules like yours.

Strange how you like to give the proper context (aka spin) on the parts the bible you don’t like..but refuse to give the same context when discussing the parts you like.

You like the “Thou shalt not murder, commit adultery, or steal” parts but you don’t want to apply the rest.

A little proportion is necessary here: murder, theft, and adultery are not in the same league with eating oysters, which is why we don’t worry about it much now that refrigerators have been invented. Same with polyester and cotton. Polyester hadn’t been invented in Biblical times.

As for the rest, if you want to have gay sex I am not going to stop you, but if you want to keep the rest of the world out of your bedroom, why don’t you keep your sex life to yourself, like the rest of us have to do?

Again, we have more picking and choosing what is important that your god said. You make some off hand comment Jesus said about “wives” and extrapolate from that that he condemed homosexuals. Why don’t we put it in “context” like you do with all the other embarrasing divel your god allegedly said. At the time this was written your god needed a large population as an army was going to be needed. Therefore more procreation was necessary. In today’s world we don’t have an underpopulation problem and therefore these teachings don’t apply. (Like you said the ban against shellfish don’t because we have refrigeration.)

You apply Pauls condemnmation of homosexuals as it is…but ignore his pleas to not wear gold into a place of worship.

You are picking and choosing when you want to apply your “context”. May I please have your magic decoder ring for when you apply the words of your magic book literally and when they are only spoken in context? YOU don’t like homosexuals. Why don’t you stop hiding behind the broze age book written by your magical sky daddy and just admit that it is YOU who doesn’t like homosexuals.

Why do you not take Mark 16:17 literally when your god says that Christians will be immune from poison? Why is it not literal when your god claims that his second coming will come within the lifetime of the disciples? What you are doing is making excuses for why your bible makes outragous claims we KNOW have no bearing on our lives and then picking which parts you want to take literally. (Hell, you had to contort yourself into knots by claiming when Jesus used the word “wife” he was making a statement against gay marriage. I have used the word wife and I’m not against gay marriage. Where is your biblical authority to be able to pick and choose? Again, it’s not there and all you have left is your excuses for why one part of your holy book should be taken seriously and others don’t apply to todays world. I suggest you try and be a little more intellectually honest and admit it’s YOU who doesn’t like homosexuals.

No, your Jesus never said a marriage is only between a man and a woman. He gave an example of A marriage. Nowhere does he limit it to ONLY a man and a woman. Please provide a scripture where Jesus himself limits marriage to only a man and a woman. Again, you are twisting yourself into knots, applying your contextual rules in one place and ignoring these same exact rules elsewhere. To do that you have to go back to the Old Testament and then you will need your magic decoder ring to determine which parts you take literally and which parts you ignore.

Ps..I’m not a homosexual but I am tired of religious nutballs like you who claim moral authority from a book….when you ignore much of what your book says. It’s the intellectual dishonesty of people like you that I find bothersome.

Simple answer: the King James Bible was 400 years old last year. While I will concede that the word “tattoo” as seen in that translation does not mean the same thing as it does today, it did definitely did exist at least that far back.

“This argument, and ones like it, are common enough in both the plebeian and professional circles alike, and so I did not feel that countering it was the “straw man” which you perceived it to be. If you’re going to be so active in forums, you might choose to watch a few of the highest caliber debates.”

I have not only read Dr. Craig’s debates, but I own his books. Your suggestion that I should “read more” of him is condescending at the very least. Although I am familiar with Dr. Craig’s work, I made a conscious effort to take my ministry in another direction.

Dr. Craig, of course, is a philosopher. I tailor my arguments to the audience, which in the case of this page consists of the more illogical, irrational bottom of the atheist barrel. You yourself have asserted several logical fallacies.

That said, my answer is my own perspective as a Catholic, and I argue mainly from the kitchen table level, which is where most ordinary people live. Sorry if it’s not up to your standards, but I am trying to answer the relevant questions in a relevant way, instead of dealing with silly questions (like whether or not Christians are allowed to wear polyester and cotton) with formal arguments.

“We’ve simplified this down to its least common denominator. You feel as though God gives us a choice. I feel it is akin to me proposing to a woman, and if she doesn’t consent, torturing and killing her. We’re going to have to agree to disagree.”

A closer analogy would be a man trying to warn you away from a cliff while you stubbornly press on, and when you go over, you blame the man who tried to warn you off.

“I realize that many Christians don’t support hate, violence, or discrimination; they simply devote their lives to supporting a book that supports hate, violence and discrimination.”

In reality, Christians support a book that supports forgiveness and reconciliation, and if you had paid attention in catechism, and stopped reading web pages like this one you would know that the message of the OT is the same as the NT.

” I wonder if you believe that DNA is useful for incriminating murderers and rapists. I wonder if you believe that DNA can determine the paternity of a baby. I wonder if you’re aware that we’ve sequenced the entire human genome. I wonder if you’re aware that we can unravel DNA and correlate the patterns within to test for compatibility between species at an incredibly precise level. You may also find it interesting that all other hominids have 24 pairs of chromosomes, except for humans, who have 23 pairs; this is because Human Chromosome 2 is a telomere-to-telomere fusion of two previous hominid chromosomes.”

Young man, I have made my living in the sciences, and I know more than you would think.

“I try to maintain the credo that “my enemies are ideologies, not individuals.” I was raised Christian from birth to 20 years of age, and I wouldn’t have revised my position if people had been hostile toward me as an individual, or spoken to me as though I were daft.”

I would argue that if they were hostile it is because of your unfortunate habit of talking down to people – you have tried several times to talk down to me, without even knowing who I am. You just took the “Christians are ignorant, superstitious, idiots, which is the whole tone of this page.

Along your way in this life you are going to find many people who are not only your intellectual equal but may most likely be your superior, and it would be wise to be able to know the difference so you can know when to speak and when to listen.

I would encourage YOU to read something other than web pages. If you like philosophy you might like Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica” which, if you have a Kindle, is available for pennies, I think. That should keep you busy for a while and show you that Christianity at it’s highest levels is not merely superstition.

I myself was a touring cyclist and a racer for many years myself, I am envious. Good luck and go with God.

“Your suggestion that I should “read more” of him is condescending at the very least.”

Then you follow this up in the NEXT paragraph with this doozie

“I tailor my arguments to the audience, which in the case of this page consists of the more illogical, irrational bottom of the atheist barrel.”

Some of your other condescending drivel posted on this forum is as follows:

“And speaking of “logic and reason”, only an atheist would try to mount an ad hominem attack when he is wrong.”

“And the whole point of my post was to point out how little atheists really know about this subject. How they can talk about “logic and rational thinking” when they don’t even know what they are talking about – and refuse to learn about – is beyond my comprehension.”

“You will notice that the original blogger has not returned to defend herself. She just throws a little red meat to the sheeple, and they do the rest. And they call US “brainwashed”.”

“Uh, Bella, you added absolutely nothing to the dialog. Congratulations.”

“Thomas, I am laughing at your little religious gathering in Washington. Are you “free thinkers” going to meet in Washington to engage in the group-think propagated by this web page and the individuals who have left comments here?”

Seriously, do you even feel the slighest bit of shame when you hit the enter key after you called somebody else condescending? Just a little bit?

“A closer analogy would be a man trying to warn you away from a cliff while you stubbornly press on, and when you go over, you blame the man who tried to warn you off. ”

Do you have any evidence of this cliff (hell)? Please provide evidence for hell and be prepared to accept your Nobel Prize. No..if you want to use an actual analogy…it would be like warning your child against the boogie man living under the bed. No evidence of either.

Moving along, your response to DNA evidence of evolution is this wonderful bit of “logic”.

“Young man, I have made my living in the sciences, and I know more than you would think.” (Nice to know that you aren’t condescending isn’t it.)

I really like the way you managed to be a condescending asshat while still refusing to grapple with any of the DNA evidence he discussed. Did you actually think nobody was going to notice this was a complete dodge?

You then begin your lecture with this little gem

“I would argue that if they were hostile it is because of your unfortunate habit of talking down to people – you have tried several times to talk down to me, without even knowing who I am.”

What have you been doing the entire time here? This may possibly be the biggest case of projection i have ever seen in my life.

“I would encourage YOU to read something other than web pages”

Wow….just amazing. Did you even bother to read your post before you hit “post comment.” The internal inconsistancy is stunning.

“That should keep you busy for a while and show you that Christianity at it’s highest levels is not merely superstition.”

REally? Do you have actual evidence that the god of your cult exists? Please feel free to provide it (Again, I will forward this evidence on to the Nobel Prize committee as i’m sure your evidence will shock the world)

Let me get some definitions down here so that we can have a reasoned discussion.

Fact: Something which is provable, testable, repeatable and for which no clearly contradictory evidence exists.
Theory: Something which is the only reasonable explanation that fits all the known facts (see above) and which is corroborated as new facts are discovered. A theory does not require all the facts but must fit all those known and must continue to fit as additional information comes in. A theory is debunked when new facts are discovered which clearly do not fit. A theory develops and evolves when new facts indicate that it is partially but not entirely correct. (By the way, the word “theory” is terribly misused in common parlance where it is used in place of “hypothesis.”)
Hypothesis: Something which offers a possible, plausible explanation for the known facts but which does not exclude other possible explanations. Additional discoveries may prove a hypothesis invalid or may serve to strengthen it by confirming it and discrediting other possibilities to the point that it becomes the only likely answer, at which point it becomes a theory.
Knowledge: A collection of facts, theories and hypotheses that meet the criteria listed above along with the understanding of the gaps, why they exist, and why it is reasonable to have them.
Research: Studying the gaps in knowledge for new facts and using newly discovered, tested and validated information to reinforce or debunk theories and hypotheses as appropriate.
Tautology: A “proof” based on an assumption that is used to prove itself (e.g. “God exists because the bible says so and God wrote the bible.”)
Faith: Taking at face value the writings from one of many books written thousands of years ago because you “believe” it alone is true, often in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

If just one religious person could produce one provable, testable, repeatable fact that could be used as the basis for a hypothesis, the entire atheist and agnostic population would immediately jump on board. In ten thousand years of written history, no-one has managed to do so. No god has left so much as a business card, no-one has come back from the dead, no miracle has occurred that cannot be explained by science, psychology or hoax.

Over those ten thousand years, many hypotheses have been debunked as either poor science (e.g. Phlogiston) or hoax (e.g. Piltdown Man). Many that haven’t have grown to become theories, meaning they have made the likelihood of their being substantially wrong very small indeed. That doesn’t mean they don’t change. Newton was “wrong” with his Theory of Gravity because he could not measure space or time at the microscopic level but his theory still holds until you get to subatomic size or close-to-light speed. Darwin did not have the advantage of DNA decoding but his hypothesis has, over time, been confirmed and validated by every single discovery since his voyage on The Beagle. The so-called “Big Bang Theory” started out in the mid-20th century as a hypothesis. There were other hypotheses at the time and over the course of 50 years, one or other gained popularity as new evidence came in. Recent discoveries have greatly reinforced Big Bang to the point where it has become the extremely likely origin and other ideas have become equally unlikely. It is now, therefore, fair to call it the “Big Bang Theory.” That is not a guarantee of its total correctness, but scientists expect that further research will confirm it more and more completely. If, on the other hand, a major discovery debunks it, then it will be back to the drawing board.

Arguing the contradictions in the Bible (of which there are many) is meaningless. People believe it is the word of God because they believe it is the word of God (a tautology). People say and have said the same thing about the Mabinogion, the Elder Edda, the Torah, the Koran and many other books throughout history. There is not one single iota of proof to support any one of them and the idea of a god who would deliver such mixed messages to his creations defies reason.

Please do not respond to this with dodges, evasions, claims of mystical knowledge or years of bible study. Please respond with clear, provable, testable, repeatable facts. If you can’t do that, you have nothing to contribute.

“Seriously, do you even feel the slighest bit of shame when you hit the enter key after you called somebody else condescending? Just a little bit?”

Absolutely not. It’s one thing for me to tell you to get your facts straight, it’s quite another for you to arrogantly tell me that I don’t even understand my own religion, which is what you and the others have been doing from day one – it’s the whole premise of this post. You have had your questions answered only to ignorantly press on as if you never heard them in your attempt to make your talking points fit my answers, arguing with statements I never made, like your gay rights comments. That is clearly the mark of someone who doesn’t know the material. You argue from emotion instead of reason, and you sound like a high school kid.

I think there’s hope for Tom – at least he is reading other points of view, actually searching for the truth, and I hope he finds it, without influence from the likes of you.

No, you have not answered my questions to you. I asked you why it was okay for you to make up excuses (and let’s be honest..they are after the fact excuses) as to why it was practical given the context for a god to order such things that seem ridiculous now. For example, you said that since there was no good way to keep shellfish it was good that that prohibtion existed. We can now refrigerate and now it’s acceptable. I used your same exact reasoning and gave a reason why the prohibition agaisnt homosexuality that is no longer valid today. (Poplulation growth was very important at the time and it’s not now) this was ignored. Again, where do i find the magic decoder ring for the parts you want to take literally and the parts you don’t. Biblical authority please. (Or you could feel free to just pull excuses out of your arse again).

You then absolutely lied about what your Jesus said regarding homosexuality when you said that that he defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. I said commented that it appeared to me that he was giving an example of A marriage and was in no way precluding any other union. This was ignored.

Additionally, it’s a shame that your god is so inept at communication that his own alleged creation cannot discren the “true meaning” and has split into thousands of denominations.

“Please do not respond to this with dodges, evasions, claims of mystical knowledge or years of bible study. Please respond with clear, provable, testable, repeatable facts. If you can’t do that, you have nothing to contribute.”

You are not going to get me to play that game. I have already told you and the others why people practice Christianity (or any other religion, I suspect). Your demands that we put God under a microscope or explain ourselves are merely dodges themselves, efforts to change the subject from what I believe to what you believe.

What you believe is your problem. If you think “science” can answer every question, then it’s a big problem indeed, and it is your problem, not mine. Scientism is not scientific.

But, if you are asking me “Why do I believe in God?”, or more specifically, “Why do I follow Christianity?”, that I can answer.

I have already alluded to it when I mentioned the problem of pain and suffering in the world, and no matter how you slice it, almost every human problem that exists is the fault of human beings, or as the Bible puts it, sin. For reasons still unknown to me, atheists continue to blame the problems of the world on the God they say does not exist, or if they can’t do that, they blame it on someone beside themselves. This is the leftist tendency to need an enemy to hate.

Christianity’s answer to this problem has always been the same: change yourself, and you change the world. Today I delivered some financial relief to someone whose husband is being treated for cancer. I don’t even know if she believes as I do, or if she even believes in God at all. But if everyone around her contributes something to her every payday, she has a much better chance of getting through this.

THAT IS A FACT.

Now, you can sit here and mentally masturbate yourselves over whether or not Christianity should prohibit eating oysters, but the utter stupidity of your positions become apparent when it becomes obvious that you are can arguing with a philosophy that incites you to visit the sick and imprisoned, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless simply because we have staked out positions on things that really don’t even have anything to do with you.

LOL! That is exactly the point I was trying to make. You FAIL. you are using even more bastardized versions of a (fiction) book to argue your supposition that same sex sex is wrong.

And classing interpretations as “heresies” – LMAO. You do realize that simply by using a newer translation of the bible that YOU are considered a heretic by many christians.

The church itself. There were more than one, but I guess you can go down through history and trace the ‘real truth’ through every permutation? Until it culminates in the Church in the house of – I can’t even finish, I’m laughing so hard.

Again – FAIL.

You seem to have neatly ignored my real point, which is that the words of someone who supposedly said something hundreds of years ago and whose words have been re-translated and corrupted over those hundreds of years and are still open to endless interpretation should only apply in any form of interpretation to those who ascribe to that particular flavor of Sky Daddy.

I’m so sorry that you did not know what the gehenna I was talking about. As usual, those wearing the “My sky daddy told me to pray for your sins” goggles are completely unable to discern tongue in cheek.

“Now, you can sit here and mentally masturbate yourselves over whether or not Christianity should prohibit eating oysters, but the utter stupidity of your positions become apparent when it becomes obvious that you are arguing with a philosophy that incites you to visit the sick and imprisoned, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless, and you are doing it simply because we have staked out positions on things that really don’t even have anything to do with you.”

“Mitch, you are anything but honest, so don’t talk to me about honesty when you refuse to admit your blatant homosexuality. When you are ready to do that, we’ll talk.”

And now you have been relegated to attempted ad hom attacks. I’m not sure which is funnier: The fact that you have been so relegated..or the fact that I could care less if you call me a homosexual. I don’t see being a homosexual as evil..or wrong….or bad. Your unjustifiable belief in your magic sky daddy has taught you so well.

“You remind me of the black knight in the Monty Python movie, who, after having had his legs and arms chopped off, keeps coming and saying “so, you think you have me?”

This conversation is over, Mitch. You refuse to hear me so I am just playing with you now.”

Please point out where you responded to my claim that you were being inconsistant with your after the fact excuses for certain biblical laws while ignoring other obvious reasons to do the same for the OT “law” against homosexuality. Please cut and paste where you responded to that.

You have failed to respond to any of my comments..thrown at an “insult” and then declared vicotry. I honestly hope you have more for those in your “ministry.” It’s a shame that their leader is unable to answer serious questions and falls back on name calling when he/she can’t answer them. Do you think your flock is being served well with such a horrible leader?

I answered everybody who asked, re-read the thread, and I don’t care if you think it’s inconsistent, because it’s not. I have told you and others that I don’t have to be a Jew in order to be a Christian, and I posted scriptural proof for that.

I don’t care if you think Jesus didn’t mean what he plainly said when he described marriage as being man and woman. And I don’t need the OT to reject homosexuality, that’s in Romans.

And you don’t get to interpret our scriptures, the church does that. Who do you think you are?

So are you now saying it’s an insult for me to call you gay? Where do you get that from? If being gay is okay, why is it an insult?

Apparently you don’t read very well as I told you i don’t consider being called homosexual an insult. The second time I even put the word “insult” into quotation marks to denote that I don’t think it’s an insult or a slur.

Additionally, despite all your protestations, it IS inconsistant to do exactly what you did when you make up modern day excuses for biblical law and then refused to acknowledge a modern day excuse for the passages about homosexuality. That is being inconsistant.

Do you not find it funny that you think Jesus “clearly” said anything considering there are 36,000 denominations of Christianity all claiming their interpretation of scripture is accurate? I think a clear reading of that passage is that your Jewish zombie god is giving an example of A marriage. If he was so passionate about this subject, as many christians (who are later found in a highway reststop) claim, why would he not make an unambiguous declaration of his disaproval. He simply gave an example of A marriage.
Strange that you claim the church gets to interpret scripture as the “church” has claimed there is no inconsistancy between evolution and scripture. Why don’t you agree with their interpretaion?

Who do I think I am? I’m Mitch…the guy mocking the living shit out of your beliefs. That’s who I am.

And what I told you is not “inconsistant”, Mitch – you just don’t get it, and the reason you don’t get it is because you don’t know the material.

“Do you not find it funny that you think Jesus “clearly” said anything considering there are 36,000 denominations of Christianity all claiming their interpretation of scripture is accurate?”

There are not “36,000 denominations of Christianity”. There are something like 33,000 versions of Protestantism that vary from non-Christian or anti-Christian to almost mainstream, and even mainstream Protestantism isn’t reformed Protestantism any longer, it’s more like 1800’s revival theology. Many of these people are the ones I said handled the Word of God like fundamentalist atheists earlier in this debate, with arrogance and ignorance.

“Who do I think I am? I’m Mitch…the guy mocking the living shit out of your beliefs. That’s who I am.”

No, you’re Mitch, the angry semi-literate atheist who is trying to tell me what I believe because he thinks it makes him sound intellectual.

“And what I told you is not “inconsistant”, Mitch – you just don’t get it, and the reason you don’t get it is because you don’t know the material.”

You asserting that you are not inconsistant is laughable after I have pointed out that where you were inconsistant in your reasoning on THREE separate occasions. I showed you where you thought it was perfectly acceptable to excuse away certain OT laws by claiming they were only historically contextual but then when historical context is given to the “laws” about homosexuality you ignore context.

I also showed you that your Jesus never said anything against homosexuality and merely gave an example of A marriage. Again, it appears that it is YOU who doesn’t know the material well enough to be consistant in your arguments and are forced to lie about what your alleged god said.

“There are something like 33,000 versions of Protestantism that vary from non-Christian or anti-Christian to almost mainstream, and even mainstream Protestantism isn’t reformed Protestantism any longer, it’s more like 1800′s revival theology.”

Oh sorry…my mistake…allow me to correct my statement then. Your god is apparently so inept at conveying his message that his “flock” has created 33,000 VERSIONS of Christianity. Is that better?

“No, you’re Mitch, the angry semi-literate atheist who is trying to tell me what I believe because he thinks it makes him sound intellectual.”

1) i am not telling you what you believe. Please point out where I am telling you what you believe. Again, it’s a shame that you are forced to lie about what I am saying in order to defend your position. I am pointing out that you have engaged in special pleading in defending your beliefs.
2) Semi Literate? Yet another ad hominem attack. Since you brought it up i’m an attorney. That’s 4 years of undergrad, a juris doctorate and then a specialty LLM in Taxation. How is your “ministry” going? The entire congregation (aka your family) going to make it to service on Sunday?

And either you believe in ALL of the Old Testement, or NONE of it, same with the New Testement. Choosing to only support what you PERSONALLY believe makes you look like a hypocrite and further makes Christianity look like nothing more than men pushing their own propaganda through deceitful manipulation of the masses.

There is no mention of marriage in the New Testement to my knowledge, if I missed it, please tell me where to find it so I can personally check. I’ve of my own accord read the first 5 books of the OT, even though I’m not religious, just got sick of hearing ignorant Bible babble from people that only act like Christians on Sunday (or Saturday). I was raised 7th Day Adventist, firm believers in the Old Testement, and as a child I constantly watched the hypocrisy of my elders, to the point that it made me a non-believer.

But if I believed, I would believe after the life of Jesus, God’s first window to the temptations of man, as Jesus forgave our sins, as God would forgive ours. The Ten Commandments made no mention of homosexual behavior, though murder, adultery, coveting, bearing false witness, stealing, using the Lords name in vain, worshipping false idols, honoring mother and father, no graven images or likeness.. nope, a straight married couple cheating beats homosexuality, but that was all old Testement stuff, even the commandments that Christians break every day.. where people basically were married after having sex. You shall eat no animal with split hooves that does not chew its cud, nothing that feeds off the dead (that’d be your bottom-dwelling sea food, catfish, vultures, bears).. debts will be forgiven every, what is that word, resets every 7 years.

There is nothing in the New Testiment about homosexuality being a sin, is there? Where? Maybe God saw through Jesus that love has no bounds.

Maybe, since the book was written by man, and contradicts itself often, maybe the Church didn’t double check when editing it and taking out the parts they didn’t like.

Remember the book and movie The Davinci Code? The storyline was fabricated, but the information presented, the Catholic Church demonizing Paganism, turned Mary Magdelin, the wife of Jesus into a whore.. tell me what 32 yr old Jewish man in that era didn’t have a wife by that age, the secret society protecting the secret from the Church who’d simply destroy the evidence… that was based on REAL research, REAL scrolls, because the Catholic propaganda couldn’t stomach the idea that women are equal to men… cummon, WOMEN create life, men simple are here to protect the woman and child because they are physically weaker. MEN destroy life, start wars, because they just HAVE to be right and have to force their beliefs on others.

Christians never copyrighted or trademarked the word marriage, and the definitions of thousands have changed throughout time. Maybe it’s time for the definition to state “if a straight couple can marry for money and divides 72 hours later making a complete mockery of marriage, then 2 homosexual people who love each other can marry for love and show God that he still has a few children who will raise their children to love and be understanding and not JUDGE, which BTW, is God’s job, not yours.”

I might not devote my life to God, but I my morals are based around everything I learned in Sabbath School. Treat others the way you would like to be treated. Help a stranger in need. Welcome the person society shuns. Kill them with kindness. But the one thing I hate is BULLSHIT. When religion stops being full of it, then maybe I can believe in God.

Oh, and not all non-Christians are Athiests. I’m Agnostic. Pagans, Buhdists way to discredit their maybe having backed the right god. Just because you’re the majority doesn’t make you right! Remember when people thought the world was flat and Columbus was crazy? And why don’t the dates in the Bible match up with our 2012 “A.D.”? I couldn’t even produce the tent for worship with the dimensions of materials to be used… I spent 30 hours on it, and I only got 104% in pre-calc my junior year of high school. Just another thing in that book that doesn’t add up. I know the book follows sinners, we’d learn no lessons from the righteous, seemed God favored the sinners, that’s not very convincing at getting man to want to be good.

“There is nothing in the New Testiment about homosexuality being a sin, is there?”

That would be “Testament”, and yes, there is, it has been posted at least 3 times.

“I might not devote my life to God, but I my morals are based around everything I learned in Sabbath School. Treat others the way you would like to be treated.”

You’re not off to a very good start, then.

Like I told Thomas, try reading. Simply regurgitating what you have been told is not thinking. I am not asking you to think like me, just think, instead of reacting.

I do, however, commend you for having generally better spelling and punctuation than Mitch, who expects me to believe he is a lawyer.

“I know the book follows sinners, we’d learn no lessons from the righteous, seemed God favored the sinners, that’s not very convincing at getting man to want to be good.”

We are all sinners, the point of the book is forgiveness and reconciliation. With EVERYBODY, not just God. You say you are against hatred, judgment, closed-mindedness and bigotry, yet you have just put on a clinic of each one of those things.

Okay, Karmen, I am going to try this one more time for your sake – this is the Cliff Notes version of what has been discussed.

The OT is the record of the ancient Hebrews, who were chosen by God to bring the Messiah to mankind. We include it in the Christian Bible because some of it is historical, some of it is worshipful, and some of it is just plain great literature with a lesson.

The Hebrews were trying to preserve their bloodline so that they could do what God had asked them to do. Some wars were fought to keep their enemies at bay, sometimes for good. Some ordinances were to preserve health and well-being, like the ones about pork, shellfish, and the presence of mold in your house. And some laws were moral laws.

People with common sense see why we don’t need Jewish health laws any longer, and in Acts 15 Peter gets up in an assembly of new Christians and points out that God has brought the good news to non-Jews as well as the Jews, which is what all that background in the OT is really all about anyway.

The apostles eventually decide that non-Jews converting to Christianity do not have to become Jews first, up to and including circumcision, the mark of the old covenant. Today we have baptism.

Just as modern Christianity has no need of OT sanitation laws, some of the ceremonial ordinances of the Hebrews have been fulfilled and become Christian sacraments. We practice them as Christians, not Jews.

(By the way, many Jews still observe the old dietary laws, but we are not Jews.)

We have NOT thrown out the moral laws.

So some laws (the moral laws) were kept, some laws were fulfilled and transformed, others are no longer needed.

This posting and everything in it is a threadbare and worn out gambit that less educated atheists bring up because they think Christians have to observe the old Jewish dietary laws, etc. Well, that was, in fact, one of the reasons Jesus came, to liberate us from all that, so what they are asking is “If you call yourselves Christians why aren’t you Jews?”

Which makes no sense at all.

Personally, I find a great deal of value in OT writings, we recite the Psalms every day. But extending that to not eating oysters is ridiculous, any thinking person would agree.

The real crux of the matter is that many of you have been brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality and it just isn’t.

What follows is excerpted from the WPAAG website:

Prior to the AIDS epidemic, a 1978 study found that 75 percent of white, gay males claimed to have had more than 100 lifetime male sex partners: 15 percent claimed 100-249 sex partners; 17 percent claimed 250-499; 15 percent claimed 500- 999; and 28 percent claimed more than 1,000 lifetime male sex partners. Levels of promiscuity subsequently declined, but some observers are concerned that promiscuity is again approaching the levels of the 1970s.

In more recent years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has reported an upswing in promiscuity, at least among young homosexual men in San Francisco. From 1994 to 1997, the percentage of homosexual men reporting multiple partners and unprotected anal sex rose from 23.6 percent to 33.3 percent, with the largest increase among men under 25.7 AIDS no longer seems to deter individuals from engaging in promiscuous gay sex.

Monogamy, meaning long-term sexual fidelity, is rare in GLB relationships, particularly among gay men. One study reported that 66 percent of gay couples reported sex outside the relationship within the first year, and nearly 90 percent if the relationship lasted five years.

A 1998 study in Seattle found that 10 percent of HIV-positive men admitted they engaged in unprotected anal sex, and the percentage doubled in 2000. According to a study of men who attend gay “circuit” parties, the danger at such events is even greater. Ten percent of the men surveyed expected to become HIV-positive in their lifetime. Researchers discovered that 17 percent of the circuit party attendees surveyed were already HIV positive. Two thirds of those attending circuit parties had oral or anal sex, and 28 percent did not use condoms.

Studies show that 75-90 percent of women who have sex with women have also had sex with men. And the average gay or lesbian relationship is short lived. In one study, only 15 percent of gay men and 17.3 percent of lesbians had relationships that lasted more than three years. Most of the above facts taken from The Health Risks of Gay Sex by John R. Digs, Jr. M.D. which has 129 footnotes and hundreds of sources, many from Center of Disease Control.

You are just babbling, now Grace, as libs are wont to do, and your alleged “point” that “the words of someone who supposedly said something hundreds of years ago and whose words have been re-translated and corrupted over those hundreds of years” is just plain BS. It’s just more of the talking points you pinheads invent. I have heard it a hundred times. As a point of fact, the Bible holds up better than just about every other work of literature for it’s consistency over time.

NOTHING has been mis-translated, new translations are created, but since we don’t speak Elizabethan English any longer, they are necessary. Try not embarassing yourself with idiotic talking points.

“You are just babbling, now Grace, as libs are wont to do, and your alleged “point” that ……”

Now…I can’t remember. Somebody was saying something about my grammar and spelling. Who was that?

“As a point of fact, the Bible holds up better than just about every other work of literature for it’s consistency over time. ”

And that’s the point. It’s a work of literature. Nothing more and nothing less. You remind me of the morons who try to find higher meaning in Harry Potter books or Trekies who memorize entire lines from the TV show and try to apply them to other parts of the show. “Oh..obviously the true meaning of Captian Kirk’s statement was foreshadowing of his problems on the plant Gullible”

“NOTHING has been mis-translated, new translations are created, but since we don’t speak Elizabethan English any longer, they are necessary. Try not embarassing yourself with idiotic talking points.”

Really? You sure about that? You sure that if you actually look into it you won’t find that the last chapters of Mark were not in the original text. You know…the parts where you Jewish Zombie God tells his followers that Christians will be immune from poison? Or one of the favorite Christian fables: Jesus standing to save the woman by saying “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” You do realize that this wasn’t in the original texts. It was added later…probably by scribes who wanted another great Jebus story. You do realize this right? Not only are there mistranslations, there are outright additions that have nothing to do with the original texts.

Again, I really do hope that your flock is being led by someone who either 1) is more honest about these things or 2) isn’t ignorant about problems with the magic book.

Ps…are you so insecure that you have to give your own comments a high rating? Seriously? Do you not think anyone will notice that any comment you make starts off immediately with ONE five star rating. It’s just pathetic. (Or maybe it’s your sky daddy doing it. Right?)

“Okay, I wanted to read the context of these verses. If you read what is framing the whole discussion in Leviticus 25:44-46, it is the Year of Jubilee, in which slaves (who were more like indentured servants in those days) were to be set free and debts forgiven.”

You do realize that according to your bible there are TWO types of slaves don’t you?. Israilites who could become slaves via owning debt and the “type” of slave where who became a slave when god’s army conquered their tribe. According to your bible, this second type were slaves for life. This is clear. In all seriousness, are you ignorant of this or just trying to thow shit at the wall and hope nobody notices your blatant misrepresentation of what is in the magic book? (Let’s be honest…it’s the latter)

“In the second scripture you offer, God is giving rules of engagement to an ancient people trying to preserve their own bloodline, ledt they be wiped out by their own enemies.”

Hmmmm….If there were just some way for an all powerful, all knowing, all loving God to protect his people without genocide. Your response to the claim of mass genocide and mass enslavement is laughable. I’m sorry, but your bible clearly says that your god ordered the mass genocide of other people and also ordered the mass enslavement of other people.

“You make it sound as though the enemies of the ancient Hebrews were just minding their own business when these nasty Jews just came up and attacked them. In reality, there was fighting going on constantly (kinda like there is now). ”

Yes..it is like now. Do you see us trying to kill an entire race of people? We could wipe the middle east off the face of the earth in about 20 minutes. We don’t try to destroy every man, woman and child of our enemy. Hell, even when we dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan we stopped when the surrendered. Did we continue on killing them to wipe them off the face of the planet? Did we go in and try to kill all the remaining women and children. And my favorite little bit of divine rage is when your God of War orders the slaughter of the livestock. Nope..it’s not enough that he kill all the men….all the women…and all the children. Nope…he’s got to slaughter all the livestock too. (Oh…and then offer a certain percentage of the slaughtered livestock to God as an offering.) This is just hysterical that you people actually believe in this God.

“And that’s the point. It’s a work of literature. Nothing more and nothing less. You remind me of the morons who try to find higher meaning in Harry Potter books or Trekies who memorize entire lines from the TV show and try to apply them to other parts of the show. “Oh..obviously the true meaning of Captian Kirk’s statement was foreshadowing of his problems on the plant Gullible””

Are you back again? I thought you might be tired of getting your rhetorical head handed to you.

If you haven’t been keeping up with current events, Mitch, it is you who have been trying to make more out of the Bible than is there. I have been trying to explain, without much success, what the church teaches about it, as opposed to the nonsense you’ve been spouting.

“Really? You sure about that? You sure that if you actually look into it you won’t find that the last chapters of Mark were not in the original text.”

So what great theological truth has fallen because of this, Mitch? As for the passages about the woman caught in adultery, if I were to invoke idiot atheist logic, that would mean that it’s perfectly acceptable to stone women caught in adultery, right? I mean, since Jesus didn’t REALLY say that “he who is without sin can cast the first stone”, then it’s open season and everybody can cast stones. After all Jesus didn’t say that marriage is JUST between a man and a woman, either, and he didn’t say that eating broken glass was wrong, either so eating broken glass must be okay, even healthy.

“Again, I really do hope that your flock is being led by someone who either 1) is more honest about these things or 2) isn’t ignorant about problems with the magic book.”

And I hope no one’s life depends on your debate skills, although if you really are a lawyer, you are well suited for a rewarding career in politics as a member of the Democrat party.

The flip side to the “gay men are disease vectors” coin is that lesbians, because there is no organ penetrating an orifice, actually transmit *fewer* diseases than heterosexual women, because there is no friction breaking the walls of a membrane and allowing pathogens to enter the bloodstream. This is a primary cause of homosexual susceptibility in males, because they’re using a cavity which doesn’t naturally lubricate, making this risk higher. I’m aware that homosexuals are twice as likely to become addicted to recreational narcotics, twice as likely to be clinically depressed, twice as likely to commit suicide, and I’d even go so far as to concede what T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C. said about their lower longevity in monogamous relationships and higher promiscuity.

The difference is that Mike almost certainly believes that these are the “fruits of their labor,” and that they are “reaping what they sow,” whereas I would say that it’s safe to conclude that this is the psychological inevitability of living in a culture which is toxic to your very existence. They’re using more drugs, are more depressed, and killing themselves because they live in a society which tells them they aren’t valid human beings, that their love isn’t tantamount to others, that they are inherently abhorrent and reprehensible. Their relationships are shorter, because on top of all of the other drama any other relationship has to contend with, they have the social pressure equivalent of being at the bottom of the ocean squeezing in on them from all sides at all times, and so fewer of them are going to be able to withstand it; more of them are going to pull a Buckwheat and go lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, just like strippers and porn stars with daddy issues; and whose fault is it that they have those?

I’m oversimplifying the issue to a great extent, but really: if African-Americans have lower education rates, higher poverty rates, higher teen pregnancy rates, et cetera, is that their fault for being intrinsically inferior, or are the slave owners from generations past who limited their opportunities for jobs and education to blame? It’s difficult for these things to correct themselves after only a few generations, because each previous generation teaching the next generation starts off at a handicap. America has also always put women at a disadvantage, gays at a disadvantage, and non-believers at a disadvantage; then, they like to say, “Look! Blacks, gays, women, and non-believers aren’t as prolifically productive as white, Christian males,” as though white Christian males weren’t the ones who started the race early and tripped their opponents in the first place. I could demonstrate where EVERY single one of those subgroups I just gave you had Biblical validation (even if American slave owners *were* incorrect about the “Curse of Ham” being applicable to Africans).

“According to your bible, this second type were slaves for life. This is clear.”

Please, Mitch, you wouldn’t have even known about the Jubilee passages if I hadn’t pointed them out.

While foreign slaves could be made slaves for life, they were not to be mistreated.

Leviticus 19:33-34

‘When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.

Numbers 15:15-16

The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same before the LORD: The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you.’”

Leviticus 24:22

You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.’”

So you see, Mitch, being a slave wasn’t what you think it was except for that stuff about not being able to have oysters or wear poly/cotton T-shirts.

“The difference is that Mike almost certainly believes that these are the “fruits of their labor,” and that they are “reaping what they sow”

Stick to your day job, Tom, your mind reading skills are terrible.

I say that sin harms us all. You and the others on this page just can’t stand it that gays have to pay any price at all for their indiscretions, because you have been told to say that.

“America has also always put women at a disadvantage, gays at a disadvantage, and non-believers at a disadvantage; then, they like to say, “Look! Blacks, gays, women, and non-believers aren’t as prolifically productive as white, Christian males,” as though white Christian males weren’t the ones who started the race early and tripped their opponents in the first place.”

You really are brainwashed, Tom. What of the blacks (even your own president Obama) and women who made it in the country you say places them at a disadvantage? Women like Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and the countless women and blacks whose faces you know just because they “made it”. I am always amazed when people like you call a country with a black president “racist”. Think about that for a minute as your morning exercise in logic.

Well, kiddies, it’s been great and it’s been fun but it hasn’t been great fun. I am off to go do something more productive, I have heard all of this before and you are beginning to bore me, especially you, Mitch.

“Please, Mitch, you wouldn’t have even known about the Jubilee passages if I hadn’t pointed them out.”

No mike, I have had this same exact conversation with fundies before, The pattern is predictible. You first claim that slavery was only temporary and used to pay off debts. (Check) When it’s pointed out to you that there were two types of slavery and one was NOT temporary and was indeed for life, you then move the bar and then claim (as you did here) that slavery wasn’t like what we think of slavery. (I do like the fact that you posted some scripture that allegedly backs up your position. Note: It doesn’t)

The scriptures you quoted don’t talk about slavery. They talk about foreigners and strangers. Are we to belive that your god commanded ALL strangers to be slaves? All foreigners? No, he commanded SOME foreigners to be slaves and SOME strangers. So let’s see how your god treats those foreigners and strangers that he DID command become slaves.

“When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 )

Can we PLEASE stop dancing around this idea that biblical slavery was not cruel. Can you at least have the common decency to admit that what your god is condoning in Exodus 21:20 is vile? Your god is perfectly fine with another person OWNING another person or even another child FOR LIFE. Additionally your god says that it is okay to beat this person as long as they don’t die in a few days. I read this and I get ill. I get ill that people like you defend this. You look at this and make excuses.

You see, here is the difference between us. I can admit that some of the things your god commands/condones are wonderful. (Helping the poor, Helping the sick, treating strangers kindly, treating foreigners kindly…etc.) However, you are unable to admit that what your god says in Exodus is indeed wrong. You are unable to admit that this is not sickening. You are left jumping from one foot to the other trying to condone the outrageous.

It’s now time for you to do what you have done all along. Ignore what I actually say, make an ad hominem attack and declare victory.

This may be the most telling comment you have made thus far. This was your response to someone citing scripture that called for Slavery and Genocide. It’s like you had no clue they were in your magic boook but you were SURE some Christian Apologetics website would have the answer for you. (C’mon…admit it..that is EXACTLY what you did) Were you unaware that these passages existed? Were you aware that they existed but weren’t disturbed by them? Again, you ignore the parts you don’t like but then claim divine command of the parts you like.

“Well, kiddies, it’s been great and it’s been fun but it hasn’t been great fun. I am off to go do something more productive, I have heard all of this before and you are beginning to bore me, especially you, Mitch.

I’ll check in with you some other time to challenge your group-think.”

Wait…what happened to this smug prick?

“Oh, by the way – I am a humble servant of God and mankind, and I have all day long for anyone, regardless of how much work he/she has put in, and willing to carry on this conversation as long as anybody is willing, free of charge.”

It really is true. Talking to a Fundie is like playing chess with a pigeon. They knock over all the pieces, shit all over the board and the fly back to the flock and declare vicotry.

A little refresher for what has happend thus far. You initially made excuses for why certain OT scripture was relevant..but not today. When it was pointed out that the same excuses could be used for the prohibition against homosexuality…you changed tactics and said the NT condmned it. When it was pointed out that Jesus never specifically condembed it you switched to Paul condemning it. However, you realize that Paul was a raving lunatic and condemned dann near everyting so you merely declared victory.

Regarding Slavery. You initially tried to posit that slavery was merely temporary and a way to pay off a debt. When it was pointed out that this was NOT the case for foreign slaves you post scripture that tells us to be nice to strangers and foreigners. It is then pointed out that Exodus specifically condones the beating of slaves up to the point of death. It’s also pointed out that unless your god commanded ALL foreigners and ALL strangers to be enslaved, your scripture is not applicable to a conversation about slavery.

It is rare that I encounter someone who is this willing to move the goal posts and engage in special pleading to this extent. What is truly amazing is that througout this entire discussion you think you have made actual construcive points.

“As a point of fact,the Bible holds up better than just about every other work of literature for it’s consistency over time.” There is so much fail in that one sentence, and I’m not even counting how ungrammatical it is.

Again you prove my point for me. I’m sorry you don’t understand modern English and that you only hear babbling when I type. Newer translations are for the most part based off of the King James (which you yourself just implied, stating they were necessary because we ‘don’t speak Elizabethan English anymore’) which was a corrupted and inaccurate translation itself. Newer translations taken from older texts are still corrupt and incomplete.

In any case, the bible is a work of fiction, enhanced by additional fanfic over the centuries and completely unable to dictate my life or anyone else’s unless they ascribe to a particular Christian flavor of Sky Daddy.

Many branches of Christianity (stretching back to Revolutionary times and before) staunchly deny points such as the divinity of Christ and the virgin birth. Once again we are faced with your grossly inflated opinion of yourself as holding the truth while all other sects of Christianity that disagree with you must be ignored.

Sadly, this is the face of “Christianity” to the world – the most narrow-minded, bigoted and hateful are those who are the most outspoken. More rational, intelligent Christians sadly stand by and allow this rhetoric to spew from people like most of the GOP candidates, enforcing the worldview that Christianity is about hate, not love.

And FYI, calling people pinheads doesn’t win points on an online forum – it is what illogical, hysterical people resort to when they have lost an argument and must fall back on personal insults.

“You really are brainwashed, Tom. What of the blacks (even your own president Obama) and women who made it in the country you say places them at a disadvantage? Women like Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and the countless women and blacks whose faces you know just because they “made it”. I am always amazed when people like you call a country with a black president “racist”. Think about that for a minute as your morning exercise in logic.” – T.C.i.t.H.o.M.a.C.

When a nation takes 230 years before the first exception, it’s safe to deem that instance antithetical to the rule. We have been unequivocally racist as a nation for the past two centuries. The president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, said that “[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.” I would be lying to contest that many at the head of the abolitionist movement did not attempt to fight scripture with scripture to *oppose* slavery, nor would I ever say that slavery was original to Judaism/Christianity. However, what I *am* saying is that it is not up for debate that many slave owners were Christian, and that they defended their behavior with doctrinal assertions.

There are certainly fewer racists **today** than enlightened people, and so you would be misrepresenting my position by saying that “people like you call a country with a black president ‘racist.'” Besides, my parents were both born right around the time the Jim Crow laws were abolished (1960’s), and racial segregation was instated up to that time. Even *after* that legislation was officially discarded, it took a couple of generations to dispel much of the residual negative sentiment, which persists largely to this day. My mother, for instance, believes that God not only made woman for man, but black women for black men, and white women for white men. She is anti-homosexual union, and anti-interracial union, because she deems both “unnatural.” I realize this may (or may not) be your position, but I’m showcasing the discrepancies between generations, as well as reiterating just how thoroughly a reading of American history reveals its checkered past with concerns to minorities.

On to women. Since you unabashedly support Romans 1:26-32 as an abdication of homosexuality by God in the New Testament, it may reasonably follow if you happened to support the aforementioned 1 Timothy 2:11-14 and 1 Corinthians 14:34, which state that a woman should not speak with authority over a man, but should be silent. Interestingly enough for a nation founded in 1776, women were not allowed to cast their political votes until 1920, with states largely constituting what we refer to as the “Bible Belt” being the last to conform. If one were to inspect the chronology of the Abrahamic faiths throughout the centuries, you’ll notice that they were highly patriarchal, treated women as subjects at best, and property at worst.

Jewish women are still experiencing gender segregation to this very day. Women in Saudi Arabia are jailed if they attempt to drive. I realize you’re neither Jewish nor Muslim, but your Judeo-Christian faith shares a common progenitor in Abraham, and the inveterate traditions of misogyny within these religions are not to be marginalized.

And I have had this conversations with fundamentalist atheists before.

They will start by employing the dopeler effect, thinking that the more crap they throw at you the smarter it may sound. You answer their talking points one by one, and as soon as you do, they say “Oh yeah? What about this?” then move off into something that may or may not have anything to do with what it was you were talking about. Then sooner or later they will start it all over again, and in doing so they act as if your very existence was an insult to them.

“Wait…what happened to this smug prick?”

He’s always here as long as you are in the discussion. It never ceases to amaze me how guys like you can think that being a jerk somehow makes you sound enlightened.

“A little refresher for what has happend thus far.”

What has happened thus far is that an ignorant fundamentalist atheist (Monica) has dragged out (once again) some tired old talking point that clowns like you fall for every time, Mitch. You refuse to listen to explanations because you are NOT a scholar, you are NOT an intellectual, you are an ideologue, first, last, and always. You don’t care about explanations, you don’t want explanations, because explanations might cause you to think and you can’t have that.

“What is truly amazing is that througout this entire discussion you think you have made actual construcive points.”

What is amazing to me is that for all of my time that you have wasted, you actually think you have said something relevant about 21st century Christianity.

“When a nation takes 230 years before the first exception, it’s safe to deem that instance antithetical to the rule.”

When it takes black aborigines from Africa the better part of 200 years to learn how to read and write our language, that’s one reason why they hadn’t become president prior to that.

“I would be lying to contest that many at the head of the abolitionist movement did not attempt to fight scripture with scripture to *oppose* slavery, nor would I ever say that slavery was original to Judaism/Christianity. However, what I *am* saying is that it is not up for debate that many slave owners were Christian, and that they defended their behavior with doctrinal assertions.”

And, as I pointed out before, it was Christianity that spearheaded the movement to abolish slavery worldwide. You are starting to sound like Mitch.

“On to women. Since you unabashedly support Romans 1:26-32 as an abdication of homosexuality by God in the New Testament, it may reasonably follow if you happened to support the aforementioned 1 Timothy 2:11-14 and 1 Corinthians 14:34, which state that a woman should not speak with authority over a man, but should be silent.”

Well, I suppose it would be useless to point out that women were asked to be silent in church because they were disrupting the services with their questions, having never been able to go to church before.

Women were not allowed to have authority over a man in that church because they were spreading heresies, in this case, gnosticism.

I am not as dumb as Mitch is – once you know why these verses were written you understand why they don’t apply today.

One more thing: I have always thought that anybody who judges a religion or philosophy by it’s abuse is a pinhead. There’s a generational difference for you: I wasn’t raised to be a bigot, like Mitch evidently was.

The political left has taught people like you and he that it’s okay to be bigoted, as long as you are bigoted about the right things and the right people. You apparently think that’s okay. Regardless of my stand on any issue, I still try to take people one at a time, but you guys don’t make it easy on a man.

Do you find it strange that I was able to actually articulate and sumarize our conversation. I was able to to actually say what you had and I both said. I note that you don’t bother to actually address any of my summation, but choose, yet again, to engage in ad hominem attacks. Allow me to ask you a question. Why should we recognize YOU as a scholar? What credentials do you have that make you a biblical scholar? From what I have seen from your arguments, you run off to the nearest apologest website to do your “research.” You did this when you were presented the bibilical calls for genocide and slavery. It’s almost like you never even heard of these passages before. So, that makes me wonder. What exactly ARE your credentials that qualify you as a “scholar” on these issues.?

If you will actually read my responses I do indeed listen to your explanations. However, unfortunately for you, I then point out how your explanation does is not consistant with other things you have said. Are you railing against women wearing gold at church? Of course not because YOU don’t care. However, according to your magic book…that is just as sinful as homosexuality. And this is where Apologetics simply falls apart. You are trying to take an inconsistant ancient book and apply the rules set forth in that book to today. You are forced to 1) pick and choose or 2) go through a contorted web of self deception, contradictory reasoning and or special pleading to justify why you follow some of those rules and ignore others.

Please feel free to respond with another post that is 100% ad hominem attack. I have to say…those are your only responses that are consistant.

On a side note, will you please join with me on my quest to unullify any marriage between people who wear gold into church. I mean this is pure evil and needs to stop. These gold wearers should not be allowed to reproduce. Also, please join me in nullifying any marriage between people that have had premarital sex. This is an abomination before my lord and it is harmful to society. Finally, I think we should both show our faith in Jebus by drinking poison. According to our magic book, only us true believers are immune according to THE WORDS OF OUR GOD JEBUS CHRIST. (Please note: this is in the NT…you know..the one you like)

You have been insulting me and my beliefs since you started here, yet you have the nerve to complain to me about ad hominem attacks?

I’ve seen your type before – you like to pick fights then cry when you get one.

“Why should we recognize YOU as a scholar? What credentials do you have that make you a biblical scholar? From what I have seen from your arguments, you run off to the nearest apologest website to do your “research.”

Not true, I rarely use apologetics websites, although I am fond of Ravi Zacharias. The truth is that I have a library full of theology texts (yeah, I read, what a concept), although as odd as it may sound to you, the meaning of the Bible is easily deduced if you’ll just read the bloody thing. (Nice try at finding out who I am, though.)

This is what makes it so frustrating when I run across people like yourself who have read nothing but websites and ask me to explain the BS you saw there.

“On a side note, will you please join with me on my quest to unullify any marriage between people who wear gold into church. I mean this is pure evil and needs to stop.”

This is an idiotic and irrelevant thing to say, which is why I find it so hard to take you seriously.

“One more thing: I have always thought that anybody who judges a religion or philosophy by it’s abuse is a pinhead. There’s a generational difference for you.”

Agreed. However, I also think that someone who ignores the abuses of a religion is also a pinhead. Please note I never said ALL christians were morons. I said fundamentalists such as yourself are morons. The problem is that YOU are forced to claim everything god does in the bible is good. I don’t do that. I readily admit that there are some great things in the bible. However, what I don’t do is whitewash and make excuses for your god when “he” condones slavery and then lays out exactly how harshly you can beat your slave. I don’t have an all or nothing mentality with the magic book. I think some of Jebus’ teachings were great. (helping the poor, the sick, the underclass). You have made it apparent that you take great pride in your conservitism. It’s a shame that the party you (probably) associate with has forgotten these teachings. To listen to the current crop of GOP candidates you would think Jebus was walking around bitching about gay people, telling women what they can and can’t do and calling poor people lazy. Hell, the scripture you quoted about foreigners and strangers in your land is the polar opposite of your parties position on immigrants. I’m sorry, but if Jesus was walking around the desert bitching at gays, telling women what to do with their bodies, telling foreigners to get the hell out and calling poor people lazy, I don’t blame the Romans one bit for nailing his ass to a cross.

Your claim of bigotry is laughable. Which group is trying to legislate away a constitutional right for homosexuals (Yes, marriage is a constitutional right see Loving v. Virginia). I’m not trying to limit your right to speak. You are free to spew your inconsistant beliefs all over the place. Just don’t ask the goverment to do it for you. Your faith has had 2000 years to convince society that you know best. Society has rejected nearly every social suggestion your faith has ever made. Your faith tells you to not get divorced. Society laughs. Your faith tries to legislate against pornography. Society laughs. Your faith tries to tell people who they can and can’t marry. Again, society laughs. And when you try to justify your beliefs on an ancient book……..society laughs.

“Not true, I rarely use apologetics websites, although I am fond of Ravi Zacharias. The truth is that I have a library full of theology texts (yeah, I read, what a concept), although as odd as it may sound to you, the meaning of the Bible is easily deduced if you’ll just read the bloody thing. (Nice try at finding out who I am, though.)”

Again, you type but don’t answer the question. You chided me about not being a biblical scholar and I simply asked you what qualified YOU as a biblical scholar? In short, you could have just admitted that you are NOT a scholar but you have read about the subject.

Why is my request that we join forces to annul marriages for those gold wearing sinners irrelevant? Why shouldn’t we join forces to annul the marriages of those premarital fornicators? I mean both are spoken about in the NT? Both have WAY more NT backing than the “prohibition” against homosexuality. And while i’m at it: What is your “ministry” (AKA family) position regarding charging interest? Surely you will join with me on my quest to stop usury.

I appreciate the patience of those few people who have been following this thread for tolerating Mike and I’s lengthy ripostes toward one another. I think it’s safe to say I’m done, here, this time for sure. It’s been good practice; the transcript will speak for itself, and allow others to reflect on it as they will, to conclude what they will. I hope everyone found this as entertaining as I did. Farewell, all!

Feel free to give us a shout-out for the Reason Rally on your page. Remember, even negative publicity is *still* publicity! ~_^

“Agreed. However, I also think that someone who ignores the abuses of a religion is also a pinhead.”

I don’t know how to break this to you, but this is the 21st century and the “abuses of religion” you need to concern yourself with are not in this country. Yet I am sure you are one of the ones who ignores the abuses of THAT religion and it’s slavery, murder, and rape, while you whine about words on a page in the Jewish OT. What a fearful individual you must be.

“I don’t have an all or nothing mentality with the magic book.”

In fact, you do. You are as much a biblical literalist as any “fundamentalist” I have ever met. That’s why I call you “fundamentalist atheists”. It’s the mark of limited education, and I find them as amusing as I find you at times.

“You have made it apparent that you take great pride in your conservitism. It’s a shame that the party you (probably) associate with has forgotten these teachings. To listen to the current crop of GOP candidates you would think Jebus was walking around bitching about gay people, telling women what they can and can’t do and calling poor people lazy.”

I believe “conservatism” is the word you are looking for, and if you wait long enough, the truth comes out. You are just another idiot liberal who thinks “Christians = Republicans” and “Republicans = enemy”. That’s what you have been taught and you swallow it hook, line and sinker.

You are not “society”, Mitch, you are a pathetic, hate-filled little man who can’t think for himself, and I have wasted enough time on you.

Tom, thanks for playing around with Mike (and or Carol). I actually did enjoy your thought out responses. Your responses were cool and calm. I tend to get pissy and mean. When these discussions start you can predict what is going to be said. The discussion about slavery was classic. They first try to say it was only temporary slavery. (Check) Then they say it wasn’t the same kind of slavery. (Check) Then they say that god made sure the slaves were treated well (Check). Finally, when it’s pointed out that their god condoned the beating of slaves….it’s a ragequit. Strange for someone who doesn’t follow apologetics websites, he seemed to follow the strained arguments of apologists step for step on every topic we discussed. I do like watching them twist themselves into knots trying to stay consistant with a book that is anything but consistant.

“I don’t know how to break this to you, but this is the 21st century and the “abuses of religion” you need to concern yourself with are not in this country. Yet I am sure you are one of the ones who ignores the abuses of THAT religion and it’s slavery, murder, and rape, while you whine about words on a page in the Jewish OT. What a fearful individual you must be.”

Really? So we don’t have religious folk trying to enact legislation to take away the fundamental right to marry from certain people? We don’t have religious folk trying to enact Absinence Only Education that witholds vital information about contraception that can save lives? We don’t have religious folk trying to get Creationsim taught in SCIENCE class? We don’t have religious folk forcing a doctor to vaginally penetrate a woman if she comes in for an abortion just to shame her? (most abortions are performed via a pill now) We don’t have religious folk requesting special exemptions from generally applicable laws so they can deny women contraception. (Which would prevent abortions). These are 21st century abuses of your religion. You have had 2000 years to convince society that your moral teachings are correct. Please stop asking the goverment to do what your priests have been unable to do for 2000 years. I don’t want to live in a theorcracy.

You and your ilk have been bashing your bible over the heads of every society you have lived in for 2 millennium. Please don’t be offended that we are now taking that bible out of your hand and showing you exactly how you pick the parts you follow and ignoring the rest. Please don’t be offended that we finally figured out that you actually don’t care what is written in your bible. Finally, don’t be offended that we realized that the secret dedoder ring you claim you use is actually your own bigotry and your need to control other people’s behavior.

“In fact, you do. You are as much a biblical literalist as any “fundamentalist” I have ever met. That’s why I call you “fundamentalist atheists”. It’s the mark of limited education, and I find them as amusing as I find you at times.”

And this displays the fact that you didn’t bother to read what I wrote. I don’t take ANYTHING in the bible literally. I am pointing out that you and your ilk use special pleading when determining which parts of the bible you follow and which parts you don’t. You make up rules…and then ignore them. Why aren’t you railing against people charging interest on loans? It was discussed much more in the NT than homosexuality? Why aren’t you railing about those harlots wearing gold/jewelry into your god’s holy place of worship? It’s not because of some biblical teaching. It’s because YOU don’t care about these things…..but you do hate homosexuals for some reason. So please stop using your god as an excuse for YOUR hatred of someone else. Not only is it intellectually dishonest……..at the end of the day, it’s cowardly.

I realize you REALLY like your phrase “fundamentalist atheist” but as i have shown you, I don’t take anything in your magic book literally. You on the other hand have the balls to pick and choose at random what you follow and then have the balls to claim it’s not you who thinks “X” is a sin….it’s god. I’m sorry that throughout our 2 day discussion you were not able to grasp the fact that i dont take anyting in the bible literally and that my main problem is your failure to produce the magic decoder ring you use to determine what you do and don’t take literally. (You find the magic ring yet?)

“You are not “society”, Mitch, you are a pathetic, hate-filled little man who can’t think for himself, and I have wasted enough time on you.”

Ah yes..your ancient book of fables is a perfect berometer for what our current society thinks and wants. Keep up the fight, your magic book is becoming less relevant to the majority of society every day.

“On a side note, will you please join with me on my quest to unullify any marriage between people who wear gold into church.”

Unullify? WTF? Unullify is apprently a word i’m making up. Annul plus nullify equals unillify? I am probably the worst speller in the world and I am apparently trying to solve that problem by making words up.

“Today I delivered some financial relief to someone whose husband is being treated for cancer. I don’t even know if she believes as I do, or if she even believes in God at all. But if everyone around her contributes something to her every payday, she has a much better chance of getting through this.”

Hmmmm if there were just some magic book that said that people shouldn’t boast about their charibable works but should keep such good deeds to themselves. Well, good thing for you no magic book like that exists…Huh Mike?

Matthew 6:2-4
Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.

(Okay..in all seriousness..I really am sorry about this but I have this crippling inability to refrain from taking the obvious cheap shot.)

Interestingly enough, I am neither a christian nor am I an atheist, the bible is the most sold and most scrutinized book in the world. There is a reason for this, the bible is the most misunderstood book in the history of man kind because in all the versions that I have ever seen. And I think some people can back me up on this one as I will not say one doesn’t exist. But in all the versions I have seen Jesus himself is mentioned all the way through the new testament and yet never wrote a single book of it. As a matter of fact those books were supposedly written decades after the man known as Jesus had died. and another thing if you want to talk about his rise from the grave look at where they got that from, it was a pagan belief that their god or the green man rose in the spring time during the celebration of estora. So the fact that Christians are so adamant about Christ having risen from the grave is actually just an old pagan belief that was stolen to make it easier to convert the pagan people into Christianity. Also the term hell is an old pagan belief specifically of norse origin coming from the goddess Hel(or hellena) who was the daughter of Loki. It was both her name and the name of her realm where the dishonored dead (those who died of old age or sickness) were sent instead of being allowed into valhalla.

Go on and think yourselves to death, people.
The core teaching of Jesus Christ of Nazareth was love; about loving one another,
judging not, forgiving. Even if you don’t believe Christ existed, those tenets ring true. Personally, I care very little about the rest. Go ahead and argue amongst yourselves. Prove your point with great pride. Figure it all out and hang on to your ego and intellect until your dying breath. It’s all bla bla bla in the end.
Pass me over some of that peace that passes all understanding. That’s my choice for deathbed contemplation.

John 14:27 King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

“Quite all right, Mitch, I know how you are. I think I’ll pray for you this morning, just to piss you off.”

OH MY GOD….your prayer worked. I have seen the light of truth. L.Ron Hubbard , his son, Tom Cruise and the holy ghost (aka John Travolta) just appeared in a vision and showed me that Scientology is the one true path to eternal salvation. Thank you for showing me the path to truth. Thank you for praying to Lord Hubbard. Why did you waste days posting internally inconsistant beliefs when all you had to do was pray to our Lord Hubband and he would reveal himself? Again, your prayers for me have worked and I am now willing to go out and preach the truth to all. L.. Ron sent his only begotton son, Tom Cruise and the holy ghost, John Travolta, to save humanity. Our Saviour Tom Cruise is the living embodiment of truth. I am now on a mission to reveal this truth, as seen in the holy cinimatic trinity: Mission Impossible 1, 2 and 3, to humanity. Yes, I know that Lord Hubbard (Played by Jon Voight) appears to be mean and nasty in early Scripture (aka MIssion Impossible 1). However, those rules that I don’t like no longer apply due to the truth revealed by the son, Tom Cruise, in Mission Impossible 3. Any clear viewing of the scripture reveals this truth. It’s a shame that fundamentalist AMission Impossiblists are so blind to the truth and have to take the scipture of Mission Impossible 1 literally. These fundamentalist AMission Impossiblists are blinded by their hatred of cash cow box office hits and their love of sin. .

(If you are following your apolgetics script, now is the time when you are supposed to threaten me with eternal torture from your all loving God)

“Liberals hate religion because politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can’t stand the competition.”

Really? Please define religion. And now watch as Mike waters down the definition to the point that anything can be defined as a religion. I have had this discussion before. This is going to be fun. The definition you are about to give is going to be so broad that anything from politics, to football can be described as a religion. However, when you use the word “religion” in your every day life, you aren’t just talking about a simple belief system or a group of people who like something. You are talking about an organized belief in something supernatural. So please, back up your statement that politics is a religion.

Now, if you want to say that isn’t what you meant and that politics is merely a substitute for religion; i would have to say…”so?” Football can be a substitute for religion. Hiking, reading, fucking, internet trolling…..hell, anything can be a substitute for “religion”

Mike, at some point you are going to come to the realization that I’m simply better at this than you are. Yes, i admit this is my way of taunting you but I have to say that fucking with you has been great entertainment for me. (Sue me…i’m stuck at home sick)

It’s not that Christians dont adhear to the old Testement, but we don’t adhere to Levitical Law. In short, because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we no longer have to adhear to that (aka, basically all Leviticus.) So none of those things apply to Christians today and if someone says they do, they need do some more studying…. Read Galatians 3:23-25

The bloggers claim is false that Christians accept the teaching of the OT on homosexuality while ignoring the other OT laws, the NT also teaches that homosexuality is wrong, so the scripture quote from leviticus is also echoed by the Apostle in Corinthians. I would be thrilled if the blogger could show me where the laws he/she claims Christians are violating are not specifically addressed to the Israelites.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5: 17-20

I quoted this section of the Bible because I think we need to keep this in mind, both Christians and non-Christians alike, the OT is there for a reason, but it’s not necessarily the reason that we think. The purpose of the OT, according to this verse, is to fulfill the prophecies of Jesus….and why did Jesus come?

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full… I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” John 10:10,28

“For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” Hebrews 2:17

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed.” Luke 4:18

and there are many more reasons….but here’s my point. Yes, we are sinners and we find it easy to point out faults in ourselves (fellow Christians) and others (non-Christians). We are not perfect role models. Jesus knows our struggles because he came to “walk in our shoes.” As Christians we are hypocrites from time to time if not always, but the goal of the Christian should be to desire to overcome these sinful behaviors by seeking our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why he came!!! To give us eternal life (even if we don’t deserve it), to forgive us of our many sins, and to tell the world about all God can do and has done.

Please do not get hung up on the actions of people. That is not the standard!! People will always let you down. I think Atheists (for the most part) have a hard time lifting their head UP!! Atheists get so distracted by the “truths” that they see in front of them they miss out on the joy, love, and peace that’s waiting for them from our God in heaven if they would just look UP!!

I’m glad to see so many Christians arguing that the bible is irrelevant in guiding behavior since it is so out of date. No more disagreements on using the 10 commandments as a guiding principle for our country then, eh?

Have read the comments and see that many are ones where one could so easily replace insulting lines about immaturity, sophistry etc. addressed to ‘You Christians’ with ‘You Atheists’ or ‘You Communists/Liberals/[nationality]/[race]’ which only shows the author’s scorn for an opposing viewpoint without any furtherance to discussion of core issues.

There’ are no visible Christian values in what Mike says; condesention, insults, pride. He comes across as a massive Ego trying to browbeat reasonable arguments into submission.
And Mike, thank your lord that you life amongst athiest that are willing to tolerate your view. Chirstianity has persecuted non-believers throughout history; witch-hunts, the Inquistion. Athiests don’t try to kill you for your views, the just ask you to explain them using logic and the scientific method i.e. hypothesis (god exists), observation (is there any demonstratible proof that this is true?) conclusion (none yet).
The scientific method doesn’t say that God (or any other diety)doesn’t exist just that there is no scientific evidence to support the argument that he does.
I know that seems like a huge own goal by science (HA, you cant prove God doesn’t exist) but that’s the way science works. It is always open to re-interpretation based on available evidence. In saying that I’m not going to be jumping off of any buildings soon in the hope that the theory of gravity can be re-interpreted.

So drive to church in your car, life in your heated home. post on the internet and keep believing in any God you choose to believe in.

This article is stupid and ignorant. It was made by someone who doesn’t understand the bible, and likes talking about things factually without knowing their context; and is created for people of the same nature to get a laugh out of and high-five themselves for bolstering a point which they haven’t thought very hard about.

Nice job, I guess next we’ll get an article about how Hispanics are taking over our country after the author watches an episode of Fox News.

Just when I think I couldn’t stop being astounded by the idiocy on the internet, I continue to be astounded.

im missing one testicle god made me this way so damn the people to hell that made this shit up if i wasn’t suppose to be like this he would of never made me like this so if u fucking bastards decide to make the bible the way u want to you can suck my dick i belive in the lord my savor… you all will follow the devil to hell when he comes i wont so FUCK YOU ALLL……….

One comment: Christians do not abolish the law; rather, the law is fulfilled in Christ: it would take more research to understand what this means (for example, how Israel’s law is apportioned, primarily, by category of moral law—such things as murder and so forth; sacrificial law—which atones for trepass against the moral law; and the laws of sanctification—such things as the dietary laws, which separate Israel from the cultures around it).

The original blog is a wilful misrepresentation of scripture. There’s an old saying “a little knowledge is dangerous”. So the blogger has found things he thinks he can cleverly attack – but he simply does not understand them.

#7 is wrong.. You can get divorced:
The Bible gives two acceptable reasons for divorce: the first is abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15), and the second is adultery (Matthew 5:32). Although God allows divorce in these circumstances, He does not command it. It is far better, in the case of infidelity, for two Bible-believing Christians to reconcile, extending the forgiveness and love that God freely gives us.

Did a moron right this article? Or just someone so ignorant they don’t even know it? You literally are the most stupid people I have ever met. Every single one of these except for the one in Mark is found in the OT. The OT was reserved for the Jews. These were Jewish laws. And then you moronically decided to try to throw something smart in at the end. You basically said don’t pick and choose verses from Leviticus about homosexuality and say its wrong because of Leviticus and then try to ignore the rest of Leviticus. You sir are a moron. Take your KJV Bible not whatever stupid version you used in your stupid article, and turn it to Romans 1:26-32 read that and shut up. It’s found in the NT and the OT emphasizing its still wrong to be homosexual moron. You are so dang ignorant. Educate yourself.

♣ About me

I am Monica Salcedo McGee, known for being a fiercely outspoken atheist, on this site, and on Twitter and Google Plus. I am a humanist, a freethinker, a rationalist, and an egalitarian. I am married to Joshua McGee (@McGeekiest). I also occasionally write over at gawd.me.

♣ I am…

I am a secular humanist. I rely on reason to understand the world, and compassion guides my effort to apply my knowledge ethically. I behave decently to everyone without any expectation of rewards or punishment after I'm dead.